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What is a Risk Assessment?
A risk assessment is a careful examination of your workplace to identify anything that could cause harm and to take precautions to minimise the risk.
Every employer is responsible for making a “suitable and sufficient” assessment of the risks to both employees and visitors. The risk assessment should consider what could cause injury or harm health, whether or not the hazards can be eliminated and what control measures can be put in place where hazards cannot be eliminated
Types of Assessment
A DSE assessment is an assessment of the workstation or display screen equipment (DSE).
If workers use display screen equipment daily, as part of their normal work, continuously for an hour or more, there is a legal requirement for employers to carry out a workstation assessment.
A fire risk assessment will identify any potential fire hazards in your place of work. As an employer, you (or your appointed responsible person) are required to carry out or arrange for a third party to carry out a Fire Safety Risk Assessment of your workplace in order to be legally compliant.
How to carry out a risk assessment
Assessing risk is just one part of the overall process used to control risks in your workplace but it is a requirement under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.
First of all, you need to understand what, in your business, might cause harm to people and decide if you are doing enough to prevent that harm. Once you have identified areas where changes need to be made, you should plan how you can introduce control measures in order to minimise risk.
The HSE recommends the following 5 steps when carrying out your risk assessment:
Step 1: Identify anything that may harm people in your workplace
- Hazards
- How they put people at risk
- What you are doing to control the risk
- Who is at risk or harm and how might they be harmed?
Step 2: Assess the risk
- How likely it is that people will be harmed by existing hazards?
- Are there controls you could put in place to minimise the risks?
- Plan how and when to introduce these control measures – prioritise.
Step 3: Control the risks
- First you need to eliminate risks wherever you can.
- Where it is not possible to eliminate them, you need to minimise the risk as far as is reasonably practicable.
Step 4: Record the findings of your assessment
- The record should include any hazards spotted and measures taken to reduce the risk.
Step 5: Review your assessment and your control measures.
- The assessment should be reviewed periodically and when changes to working practices or equipment are made. You must also review the controls you have put in place to make sure they are working.
Testimonials
“A superbly executed course with a plethora of excellent and useful information to facilitate a highly informative and rounded DSE assessment to the client. Our Assessor Trainer, Clare, was wonderfully engaging”
EG, Ministry of Defence
“It was really thorough and informative. Helen is clearly very experienced, enthusiastic and knowledgeable about the subject, and her passion really came through in the training. All the relevant information was covered, and all questions answered.”
JS, Cambian Group
“Clare was an excellent trainer & managed to keep me interested. She was able to deliver in such a way that all people could understand despite our varying backgrounds.”
SM, Kettering General Hospital NHS Trust