A risk assessment is a systematic examination of a task, job or process that you carry out at work for the purpose of;
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- Identifying the significant hazards that are present (a hazard is something that has the potential to cause someone harm or ill health).
- Deciding if what you have already done reduces the risk of someone being harmed to an acceptable level, and if not;
- Deciding what further control measures you must take to reduce the risk to an acceptable level.
A separate risk assessment should be carried out for all tasks or processes undertaken by your organisation, they should be carried out before the task starts, or in the case of existing or long running tasks, as soon as is reasonably practicable. Risk Assessments should also be reviewed on a regular basis; monthly, annually, bi-annually, depending on risk, or if something changes i.e. a new worker, a change of process or substance etc.
If the risk is not adequately controlled decide which new control procedures are required and ensure these procedures are implemented. The control measures are the actions performed to reduce either the probability of the accident happening or the severity of the outcome, and where possible both. When considering what measures to put in place it is important to consider both severity and likelihood, in order to minimise the overall risk. When deciding what new control measures will be required, it is helpful to work through the ‘hierarchy' of controls. It does help to get a few people to check your risk assessment; other people may spot something that you have missed, also start a register of risk assessment so that you can find them quickly if needed.