Risk assessment, Start here!
Risks and threats are all around us, if we are not careful we can become
paranoid. This however does not excuse us from taking sensible practical safety
measures.
Risk is essentially the likelihood of something happening.
What if a glass bottle is dropped? - there is a risk that someone could be cut.
A hazard is anything that may cause harm.
Although they may not cause harm in one form, there is always a "what if....?".
Glass bottles can be considered a hazard. Normally they are fairly harmless -
what if they are dropped?
Electricity is a hazard.
Whilst properly contained it is safe, what if...?
To make it practical to determine the correct action, assessments are made by
developing a ratio between the risk, hazard and likelihood.
A risk assessment
is simply a process of carefully identifying anything that may cause harm to
you or others during the course of your work or that may exist in the
workplace. Once this is done, you will then be able to decide upon the best way
and the most appropriate action to take to reduce the likelihood of anyone
being hurt.
The purpose being to prevent accident and illness.
Whilst anyone can and should carry out informal risk assessments, it is always
advisable to have a trained assessor for any formal assessment. This should not
stop you from carrying out a risk assessment of your business and environment
then determining what further action is necessary.
Risk assessment Basic Guides
At Quality Solutions we do not generally perform Risk Assessment for our
clients. However over the years we have advised some of our long standing
clients and developed a series of check lists and report templates.
We have decided to make these available for a very small fee, they are all
'Word' documents and consist of the following:
-
Formula sheet for determining Risk Assessment Levels.
-
General Risk Assessment form.
-
Risk schedule with facilities to show departments and their levels of risk.
-
Monthly Review report which can be used to show departmental improvements
since previous review.
These are available for instant download at just £28 + vat
You can of course copy and use any of the data and forms anywhere within your company.