Health and Safety Risk Assessment

1. The Process

In most work environments, you (or your designated health and safety officer) can carry out the risk assessment yourself, calling in specialist help for specific hazards (eg to monitor levels of airborne dusts or noise).

1.1 Identify the hazards (see 2, 3 and 4).

• Physically inspect your premises and the tasks carried out there.
• Ask employees and safety representatives what hazards they are aware of. Working as a small team, with an insider from each department to provide experience and an outsider for a fresh eye, can be useful.
• Check suppliers' instructions and information on equipment and materials.
• Check your records of accidents and sickness. These may point to hazards.
• If your work varies, or you operate on different sites, include other hazards which you can expect to come across.

1.2 Decide who could be affected.

You are responsible for the health and safety of everyone who could be affected, not just your employees.

• Visitors, contractors and new employees may be at extra risk. Bear in mind that they may not be aware of your safety procedures.
• Consider those who are particularly vulnerable (eg the disabled, pregnant women and people who work alone).

1.3 Evaluate how likely employees and others are to be hurt and how effective your existing precautions are (see 5).

• If there are any specific legal requirements affecting your industry, have you complied with them?
• Do you meet industry standards?
• What risk remains? How many people could it affect, and how badly?

1.4 Decide what you can do to eliminate or minimise the risk (see 6).

• Ideally, you should eliminate the hazard altogether.
• Most risks can be reduced to acceptable levels with simple procedures and systems.
• Consider additional measures, which are reasonably practicable, to reduce the risk to an acceptable level. For example, warning signs or personal protective equipment.

1.5 Record the outcome of your health and safety risk assessment and any corrective action taken (see 7).

• The written record can be a useful reminder of areas you may need to keep under review.

1.6 Review your assessment periodically (eg annually).

• You will also need to amend your assessment when circumstances change (eg when you acquire new equipment).