Risk Assessments

Protecting your workforce and your business

What is a risk assessment?”

Health & Safety Executive guidance details a 5-step approach to conducting risk assessments. It goes as follows:

Identify the hazards present in the workplace.
Identify those at risk from the hazards
Evaluate the risks and decide what precautions should be put in place
Record findings on a suitable form.
Review the assessment on a regular basis or when things change

You MUST ensure your risk assessments are undertaken by competent people

Why do you need risk assessments?”

Moral Reason – as an employer you have a moral duty to ensure the health, safety & welfare of your workers and anybody else who may be affected by what you do or what you don’t do.

Financial Reason – properly conducted risk assessments are a critical element to reduce the likelihood of accidents, compensation claims or even costs associated with a prosecution.

Legal Reason – there is a legal requirement for ALL employers to undertake a risk assessment and if you employ 5 or more employees you MUST write them down.

Where are risk assessments needed?

Here are just a few examples where risk assessments will be needed:

Manual handling activities
Fire risk assessments for all non-domestic premises
Use of hazardous substances
Use of display screen equipment
People identified as being at risk, e.g. Young Persons or Expectant Mothers
All significant work based activities
Work equipment

What can we do to help?

We can work with you to to ensure your risk assessments are:

carried out by competent people
suitable for the risks in your business
sufficient in terms of level of detail
reviewed if there is reason to suspect that they are no longer valid

We can also help construction and contracting organisations with generic risk assessments and method statements that are able to be modified to suit specific jobs, and site-specific risk assessment documents and procedures.