Overview
As an employer, we are required by law to protect our employees, and others, from harm.
Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, the minimum you must do is:
- identify what could cause injury or illness in your business (hazards)
- decide how likely it is that someone could be harmed and how seriously (the risk)
- take action to eliminate the hazard, or if this isn’t possible, control the risk
Assessing risk is just one part of the overall process used to control risks in your workplace.
The safety services team have developed an online risk assessment tool to support you in the risk assessment process.
Those undertaking risk assessments are required to undertake a short training programme to understand the process.
By following the link you can access the operating procedure that has a guide to using the system effectively. This is a supplement document to the training.
The system should not be used for personal risk assessments such as New and expectant mothers, individual health issues or young persons. Please contact the safety services for support with documentation.
Communicating assessments
It is vital that we communicate the significant findings of risk assessments to our co- workers.
Make sure anyone who may be at risk is kept well informed. Employees should always be aware of what action is being taken to reduce the risks and how they are expected to work with any measures introduced.
Training
The purpose of an overall workplace risk assessment is to establish whether the level of risk arising from workplace activities is acceptable, or whether additional measures need to be taken to control workplace hazards to further reduce or remove unacceptable risks.
This video includes the following elements of a risk assessment:
- Identify all the hazards that are present
- Decide what are the possible consequences related to these hazards and who may be harmed.
- Evaluate the risks and decide whether the existing precautions are adequate or more needs to be done.
- Make a record of the findings, and
- Review and if necessary, revise the assessment from time to time.
Regardless of the hazards present, the proper application of the risk assessment process will result in a safer workplace.
Risk assessment fundamentals video
Understanding ‘reasonably foreseeable’ risk in health and safety
Health and safety negligence-based law states that employers have a duty to prevent injury or harm from acts that are “reasonably foreseeable”. The university is expected to be able to identify and manage reasonably foreseeable risks at work.
In short, workplace risks are not expected to be managed if they couldn’t have been identified or understood beforehand. However, the university is to identify and appropriately manage those risks created by any work activities that can be anticipated.
