Any work process or environment can present hazards with the potential to cause minor or serious harm. Employers have a legal duty to consider and control any reasonably foreseeable risks that could arise from their work activities. This process is called risk assessment.
It is important to get this right to meet your legal duty of care. By law, you must take steps to protect your staff as well as anyone else that could be affected by your work.
Creating, implementing and reviewing risk assessments are all steps that help you ensure you are legally compliant.
The process of creating risk assessments includes the following steps:
Identifying potential hazards
The first step to take when carrying out a risk assessment is identifying potential hazards. Employers must think about safety and health risks linked to their work equipment, environment, materials, and working practices.
Assess who might be harmed and how
The second step involves considering who can be harmed and how.
Consideration should be made for (where applicable):
Employees
Customers
Members of the public
Students
Residents/ service users
Once you know who can be harmed and how, you will be in a better position to estimate how likely it is that a hazard could occur and what the consequence of that hazard occurring would be.
Evaluate the risks
The third step is evaluating the risks. You'll need to evaluate the severity of each one and consider how severe their impact could be.
To make this process easier, a numerical risk rating can be given to the hazard to show a clear indication of whether the risk is low, medium or high.
For further information or advice on this, you can contact our Health & Safety team for support.
Determine control measures
The fourth step of a risk assessment is determining control measures. Control measures are the actions you take to reduce risk and prevent harm to the people that fall under your legal duty of care.
There is a set order for consideration of control measures:
Elimination
Elimination of the hazard is the best control measure you can introduce, as this eliminates the risk entirely.
2. Substitution
Where hazards can not be fully eliminated, consider if the hazard could be substituted with something less hazardous.
3. Engineering Controls
Where the hazard cannot be eliminated or substituted, can we engineer the hazard away? Examples of engineering controls include periodic maintenance of machinery, equipment guards, lifting aids or ventilation systems.
The next two considerations largely rely on the behaviour of people, meaning that they are less effective. This is the reason they should be considered after the first three, but they are still very important.
4. Administrative Controls
Provision of information, instruction, training and supervision are all types of administrative controls that must be considered next.
5. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
Lastly, the final consideration that must not be solely relied upon in any circumstances is the provision of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).
Health surveillance measures can also be used as part of the risk assessment process as a means of periodically checking that measures used to protect the health of employees are working.
Record and share significant findings
The fifth step involves recording and sharing significant findings of your risk assessment.
It is a common misconception that if a business has lass than 5 employees that they do not need to have risk assessments in place. They simply do not have to have them written down.
It can be argued however that it is vital for any organisation that wants to protect itself from civil accident claims to record evidence of risk assessments being created, implemented and shared with employees.
How can a business prove they met their duty of care if they do not have recorded evidence?
Review your risk assessment
The final step involves reviewing your risk assessments on a regular basis. This should be done as a minimum on annual basis.
Prompts for a risk assessment review could happen more regularly than this. For example, after a work-place accident, changes to machinery, equipment or work processes.
Employers should use their findings to make relevant changes to their work customs and practices.
Get expert advice on risk assessments with Peninsula
No matter what your industry is, all employers have a legal duty to ensure their workplaces are safe to work in. Without the right maintenance, you could end up injuring your staff, customers, or anyone who visits your work premises.
Peninsula offers expert advice on risk assessments. We offer 24-hour H&S advice – ensuring your employees work in the safest and most secure manner. Peninsula also provides a free risk assessment template for you to download and use when required.
Want to find out more? Contact us on 0800 028 2420 and book a workplace risk assessment with one of our risk assessment consultants today.
