Risk Assessment
General Risk Assessment
Introduction to General Risk Assessment
Conducting a health and safety risk assessment is a vital task to stay compliant. A risk assessment is a careful examination of what, in your workplace, has the potential to cause harm to people – whether that be employees, volunteers or members of the public.
Under Health and Safety at work Ac 1974t (HSWA), employers have a legal duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of their employees and anybody else who might be affected by their activities. In order to fulfil this duty, the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 states that employers must conduct a risk assessment of their premises to identify these potential causes of harm and take steps to reduce the likelihood of accidents.
As part of your risk assessment, you should:
Identify possible causes of harm within the workplace and who may be harmed.
Evaluate the likelihood and the severity of harm occurring given the safeguards you have in place.
Put in place further safeguarding measures where necessary to reduce the risk to as low a level as reasonably practicable.
If you employ five or more members of staff, it is a legal requirement to keep a written record of the main findings of the risk assessment. Even if you have fewer than five members of staff, it’s good practice to document your risk assessments, as this will help you to demonstrate the steps you have taken to create a safe and compliant working environment.
How do Hylev conduct your risk assessment?
Tackling a risk assessment can seem like a substantial task; however, at Hylev we are here to offer our expertise. Working along side you we will;
Identify hazards
Decide who might be harmed
Evaluate the risk level, using our safety matrix
Decide whether existing risk controls are sufficient
Hylev will securely keep a record of the findings
Assist you in monitoring and reviewing the process.
In identifying hazards, you may have noticed that some risks have already been addressed. As an employer, it is your legal duty to reduce the remaining ‘residual risk’ to as low a level as is reasonably practicable.
It is important to note that you are not expected to completely eliminate all risks. The HSE advise that the risk assessment process is not about creating huge amounts of paperwork; it is about identifying and implementing sensible and proportionate control measures to keep risk to a minimum.
Risk assessment in place – what happens next?
Once we’ve identified potential hazards and appraised your existing controls, we will create a Prioritised Plan of Action that details what new or remedial measures are needed and sets a timescale for reducing risk.
High-risk activities should normally be tackled immediately
Medium risks in days/weeks
Low risks in months
In some cases, no action will be needed. However, you must make sure you’re complying with the law by reducing risk to as low a level as reasonably practicable.
Hylev can take you through a turnkey package where we help you implement the Prioritised Action Plan. Ensuring that those reduceable risks are managed to a practicably reasonable level.
How often should a risk assessment be carried out?
Risk assessments are living documents and should be reviewed at least annually. Hylev can assist you in the review process when;
Accidents, ill health and dangerous occurrences (or ‘near misses’)
Significant changes to personnel or work practices
If there is a reason to believe that the current risk assessment is no longer valid.
Generally speaking, whenever there is a change that could lead to new hazards or a suggestion that existing controls aren’t effective and an up-to-date risk assessment will be required.