SAFETY GUIDANCE SG001.00
RISK ASSESSMENT Page 17 of 23
The company recognises that workplace hazards expose individuals to the risk of harm. Hazard awareness is, therefore, essential if accidents are to be avoided. Through training, regular communication and consultation, it endeavours to reduce the risk attaching to these hazards to an acceptable level. Wherever there is a probability that this cannot be achieved, a written risk assessment will be completed, recorded and communicated.
From time to time there will be a need for an assessment of the risk attaching to specific work tasks or site/workplace hazards not covered by the generic assessments. In such cases a risk assessment will be carried out by the manager/supervisor allocating the task or the person(s) who will carry out the task. The assessment will be recorded and communicated by the manager responsible for the work task or work site. The manager will ensure that the personnel who will carry out the work task are competent by way of relevant training and/or experience.
It is recommended that signatures are obtained from employees indicating that they have fully understood and agree to comply with the content of the information presented. If signatures are not obtained then some other form of record must be kept that demonstrates that the individual has received the information e.g. via delivery at induction, delivery at safety meetings, given time and
space to read the information, etc.
If an assessment for a task cannot be followed or conditions change such that the assessment is no longer appropriate, work must stop until such time as the task can be reassessed.
Risk assessments specify control measures which must be in place before work can commence.
Those carrying out risk assessment should have attended formal Health and Safety training or should attend an approved company in-house risk assessment course.
Assessment Review
For new assessments and for changes to existing assessments a review date will be required at 12 months. At the 12 month review if no changes are necessary the second and subsequent reviews can be set for a five year period.
Risk assessment should be seen as a continuing process. So, the adequacy of your selected control measures should be subject to continual review and revised if necessary. Similarly if conditions change to the extent that hazards and risks are significantly affected then the risk assessment should also be reviewed.
Contents page
Background / 2The Law / 2
Key Definitions / 3
The risk assessment process / 4
Annex A - The process of risk assessment in brief
/ 11Annex B - Prompt-List Of Hazards
/ 12Annex C -Blank Risk Assessment Pro-forma
/ 13Annex D - Completed Risk Assessment
/ 14Annex E - Extended Hazard Checklist
/ 15The Law
The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (MHSW) were introduced under the umbrella of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, to enable the UK to implement the EC directive aimed at encouraging an improvement in the approach of management towards the health and safety of people at work.
The duties imposed by the MHSW in most cases are ‘absolute’, ie not qualified by the terms ‘practicable’ or ‘reasonably practicable’. There are 30 regulations in-all making up the MHSW Regulations, Regulation 3 - Risk Assessment, being the one that these guidelines are designed to explain. (Accompanying the MHSW is an approved code of practice (L21) available from HSE books which is recommended reading.) The main provisions of Regulation 3 are summarised below.
Risk Assessment Regulation 3
Regulation 3 of MHSW requires employers to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks to the health and safety of their employees whilst at work. The purpose of an assessment under these regulations is to enable the employer to identify the preventative or protective control measures necessary to control the risks highlighted in the risk assessment. An assessment must also include any risks to the health and safety of non-employees.
A suitable and sufficient assessment is one that:
· correctly identifies the significant risks that are reasonably foreseeable
· enables the assessor to decide what action needs to be taken, and what the priorities should be
· is appropriate for the type of activity
· will remain valid for a reasonable time
· reflects what employers may reasonably practicably be expected to know about the risks associated with their undertaking.
The time and effort put into an assessment should be proportional to the degree of risk.
Where an assessment has been carried out as a requirement of some other regulations, for example COSHH, there is no need to repeat the exercise for the purposes of meeting the MHSW Regulations.
An assessment must be reviewed and up dated where necessary.
Where an employer has several similar workplaces with similar activities a ‘generic’ (or model basic) assessment may be appropriate, but these ‘generic’ assessments must be adapted, where necessary, to be relevant to each individual undertaking.
A record of the assessment is required where an employer has five or more employees. The record must detail: the significant hazards which might pose a serious risk if they were not properly
controlled; the control measures in place and the population exposed to the risks, including any group of people especially at risk.
What is risk assessment and why do it?
The basic steps
Risk assessment involves three basic steps:
1) Identify hazards;
2) Estimate the risk from each hazard - the likelihood and severity of harm
3) Decide if risk is tolerable
Why is risk assessment important?
For many years occupational health and safety risk assessments have been carried out usually on an informal basis. Employers are now legally obliged to carry out risk assessments under MHSW, and other more specific regulations. Their main purpose is to determine whether planned or existing safety control measures are adequate. The intention is that hazards are removed or risks controlled before harm can occur.
Some do’s and don’ts
Don’t- think of risk assessment as a bureaucratic imposition. That will waste time and change nothing.
Do - look on risk assessment as an aid to providing an action list, which will form the basis for implementing control measures.
Do- ensure that you have, or select people that have practical knowledge of the activities being assessed.
Do- involve other people in risk assessment, everyone should contribute to assessments that relate to them.
Don’t become complacent. People who are too close to situations may no longer see hazards. The aim is that everyone tackles risk assessment with a fresh pair of eyes and a questioning approach.
Risk assessment pro-forma
A risk assessment pro-forma has been developed. Blank and completed examples can be found in Annex C and D. The use of these forms will be referred to throughout these guidelines.
The pro-forma and completed generic assessments are available on the library drive of the server for ease of cribbing for similar activities.
Key Definitions
One aspect of risk assessment, which can cause some confusion, is the proliferation of interpretations of familiar words such as accident, hazard, risk and so on. So, for the purposes of these guidelines the following definitions will apply.
Accident An accident is an unwanted, unexpected, unplanned and unanticipated event with negative consequences, which results in harm or loss.
Incident An incident is an event, which represents a deviation from the intended sequence of steps designed to enable an objective to be attained. It normally has an unwanted outcome. A “near miss” tends to be described as an incident.
Hazard A hazard is an article, substance, machine, installation or situation with a potential to cause harm or loss.
Risk Risk is the combination of the likelihood and the severity of a specified hazardous event (accident or incident). Risk, then, always has two elements:
a) the likelihood that a hazard may occur;
b) the severity of the harm or loss
Harm Harm represents physical injury, ill-health, death, property and equipment damage and any form of associated loss.
Danger Danger is a state or situation which is a product of a hazard and its associated risk (the difference between danger and risk can be illustrated by the following. Where there are permanently exposed high voltage electrical conductors there is a permanent danger of electrocution; however the risk of electrocution would vary between, say a competent electrician and a young child in close proximity with the conductors).
Tolerable Risk Risk has been reduced to the lowest level that is reasonably practicable.
Example using the definitions
Working from a ladder is a hazard with the potential to cause harm both to the person working on the ladder (eg harm caused by falling) and to people below (eg harm caused by being struck by an object dropped from the ladder). The person working from the ladder is in danger and anyone below the ladder is in a danger area.
The risk assessment of working from a ladder will analyze:
(a) the likelihood of these accidents or incidents occurring, taking into account the condition of the ladder, if it is secured, if the work carried out from it requires two hands or overreaching, how competent the person on the ladder is, how long the work will take, if the ladder is near a busy doorway or in public areas, etc
(b) the severity of the harm; this is related to the height of the work, the surface below the ladder, whether the work is over water or chemicals, if the ladder is near a busy doorway or in public areas, etc.
These factors, and any others, will be used to decide on the level of risk and evaluate if the hazard is adequately controlled.
The risk assessment process
1 Identify Work Activities
A necessary preliminary to risk assessment is to draw up a list of work activities, group them in a manageable way and then gather information about them. It is best to integrate assessment for all hazards, associated with a task, and not carry out separate assessments for health hazards, manual handling, machinery hazards and so on. For example, constructing an aluminium tower scaffold has two main hazards, falls from above 2m and manual handling. Only one assessment should be carried out, but would include how to control these two hazards.
The size of the job in hand will determine whether a list of work activities needs to be drawn up. A large project, for instance, may have many tasks associated with it, i.e. working at height, pressure testing, welding, use of mobile elevating work platforms, lifting of evaporators, site access, etc. In a case such as this, a list would need to be drawn up. Many of the tasks will have been assessed previously. Generic assessments will be found on the server. If appropriate these can be used un-altered, or changed to take account of any site-specific requirements.
There may be some tasks on your list that have no previous assessment, therefore, it will be necessary for you to carry out the assessment yourself.
Having decided that there is a task that requires assessment, you may need to gather information. Some areas to think about include the following:
tasks being carried out: their duration and frequency;
location where the work is carried out;
who will be carrying out the task;
others who may be affected by the work (e.g. visitors, contractors, the public);
training that personnel have received about the tasks;
any written systems of work ( e.g. technical bulletins or standard specifications);
is there a permit to work system that must be followed or site specific rules (customers safety rules);
plant, machinery powered hand tools that may be required including any operating instruction;
size, shape surface character and weight of materials that may be handled;
distances and height that materials have to be moved by hand and over what surface (working on a cold store ceiling);
services used (e.g. compressed air, electricity);
substances used during the task (e.g. paints, gases) and their physical form (fume, gas, vapour, liquid dust/powder, solid);
content of and recommendations of COSHH and material safety data sheets (MSDS) relating to substances used or encountered;
requirements of relevant acts, regulations and standards relevant to the work being carried out, the plant and machinery used, and the substances used or encountered (e.g. BS EN 378 - 2000, Refrigeration Institute Codes, Electricity at Work Regulations, Pressure Systems Regulations etc);
Control measures that are already in place or you are positive will be in place when the work is due to take place.
2 Identify Hazards
Once the tasks are known and relevant information has been gathered, hazards associated with the tasks need to be identified. Three questions help with hazard identification:
1. is there a source of harm?
2. who ( or what ) could be harmed?
3. how could harm occur?
The approved code of practice (ACOP) to the Management of Health and safety at Work Regulations says that a suitable and sufficient risk assessment should be made. “Suitable and sufficient” is not defined in the Regulations. In practice it means the risk assessment should identify the risks arising from or in connection with work. The level of detail in a risk assessment should be proportionate to the risk. Once the risks are assessed and taken into account, insignificant risks can usually be ignored as can those risks arising from routine activities associated with life in general, unless the
work activity compounds or significantly alters those risks. It is difficult to see how the risk associated with a hazard can be considered insignificant unless it has been identified and properly analysed. Therefore, it is good practice to identify all hazards, but if you consider the hazard to possess little potential to cause harm, then give it a low risk rating. (See 4 Determine Risk)
A prompt-list of hazards is recommended, such as the one in annex B an extended checklist of hazards can be found in annex E
3 Identify Risk Control Measures
During your consideration of the identified hazards, you must note down the existing or planned control measures that you think are necessary to control that risk, on the Star pro-forma, An example of some control measures can be found on the example risk assessment in Annex D.