Risk Assessment is a critical element of the H&S process, this article looks at how best to maintain these.
Health & Safety law states that risk assessments must be carried out before work is started, risk assessment is the process of examining the workplace to identify hazards and to evaluate controls.
Once a risk assessment has been completed, the appropriate controls must be put in pace to minimise risks to staff carrying out the work. These control measures must be reviewed to ensure safety systems that are in place are effective in controlling risk and protecting employee’s well-being.
Multiple risk assessments can be difficult to track and the monitoring process can quickly become out of control when using a manual or paper-based Health & Safety Management system. This is amplified over multiple locations.
Documenting and tracking the following components of a Risk Assessment need to be done and the information needs to be accessible to various departments in the business.
- the type of risk you are assessing (i.e. task, COSHH, equipment);
- who could be affected by said risk (and how often they might be exposed);
- what harm could come to the people affected;
- how severe that harm is, and;
- what controls you have in place to prevent that harm from occurring;
- You should also have a date diarised for review and pro-active monitoring systems in place.
As well as being a legal requirement, risk assessments are important because they offer the chance to identify and resolve hazards before anyone is harmed. Preventing accidents and injuries also means that staff are less likely to be absent from work, helping your organisation to be more productive and efficient.
How does BCarm assist with the Risk Assessment process?
Risk Assessments should be the key element in the management of Health & Safety risks for all types of organisations.
BCarm Health and Safety Management provides the following risk assessment templates:
- Fire
- General Risk Assessment (L/M/H, 3x3 or 5x5)
- COSHH
- Manual Handling
- Stress
- New & Expectant Mothers
- Young Persons
You can then:
- Capture the hazard information and define the control measures
- Set the monitoring and frequency for each and assign it to an individual(s) in the business.
- They will then be emailed a notification of the task to monitor the Risk Assessment.
- Monitoring the Risk Assessment requires the individual to score whether each Control Measure is in operation which in turn produces an over compliance score for the Risk Assessment.
- Corrective Action can also be recorded at the same time and this too can be allocatted to individuals with an Action Date
- All of this activity is instantly visible in the Reporting Centre
BCarm allows you to reflect the Management/Organisational structure of the business so all of the above can be applied to individual business operations with business wide view of activity with instant drill down.