Health and Safety Risk Assessment

2. Accidents Waiting to Happen

There are numerous places in every office, shop or factory where some sort of hazard can be identified.

Particular situations may well lead to particular kinds of accident. These may be quite hard to recognise when you are looking around familiar premises, so a checklist approach is useful.

2.1 Identify places where uneven floors, loose cables and spillages may cause people to trip or slip when moving around.

• Note areas where poor lighting might increase the risk from these hazards.

2.2 Look out for sharp corners and open drawers that people might walk into.

2.3 Check doors and crossings where people might collide.

• People carrying large items or pushing loaded trolleys may not be able to see where they are going.

2.4 Pay special attention to staircases and unguarded drops where people might fall.

2.5 Make a note of areas where unstable stacking or poor storage might lead to people being hit by falling objects.

• Even files falling down from a high shelf could cause serious injuries.