Basic Guide to Risk Assessments

Risk Assessment is a fundamental part of a company’s safety management system and forms the foundation of all safety measures at work.

Risk Assessment allows a company to decideon their priorities based on the risks found and requires Employers to set objectives for eliminating or reducing risks.

The general duties of employers to their employees and anybody else affected by their activities in section 2 and 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 imply the need for risk assessment. However, the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations are much more specific concerning the need for risk assessment. The Regulations require risk assessments to be ‘suitable and sufficient’, this is particularly important since it defines the limits to the risk assessment process. A suitable and sufficient risk assessment should:

• identify the significant risks and ignore the trivial ones;
• identify and prioritize the measures required to comply with any relevant statutory provisions;
• remain appropriate to the nature of the work and valid over a reasonable period of time.

The most common form of risk assessment is the qualitative assessment, which is based purely on personal judgement and is normally defined as high, medium or low. Qualitative risk assessments are usually satisfactory since the definition (high, medium or low) is normally used to determine the time frame in which further action is to be taken. One widely used process of a qualitative assessment was produced by the HSE and follows a basic process:

• Step 1 – Identify the hazards (Ignoring the trivial hazards and focusing solely on the significant ones including those hazards which may affect a persons health).
• Step 2 – Decide who might be harmed and how.
• Step 3 – Evaluate the risks and decide on precautions.
• Step 4 – Record your findings and implement them.
• Step 5 – Review your assessment and update where necessary.

Deciding which control measure to implement should be decided based upon the quantum of risk severity and likelihood (risk) verses the sacrifice in time, trouble and cost. In other words, if the risk of injury is very small compared to the cost, time and effort required to reduce the risk, then no action is necessary.