In the United Kingdom, it is an employer’s requirement to protect your employees, and others who come into your workplace from harm and therefore using RAMS (risk assessment method statements) is a great way to identify and reduce incidents occurring.
Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, the minimum requirement for employers is to:
There are multiple steps to reducing risks in your workplace and assessing the risks is just one part of the overall control and mitigation process.
For most small, low-risk businesses the steps you need to take are straightforward and are explained below.
Risk management is a step-by-step process for controlling health and safety risks caused by hazards in the workplace.
You can do it yourself or appoint a competent person to help you.
Look around your workplace and think about what may cause harm (these are called hazards).
Think about:
Use your accident and ill-health records to help you to identify risks that might occur in the future. If there is a history or a trend of injuries within a workplace then use that information to stop or reduce the risks of them going forward. Take account of non-routine operations, such as maintenance, cleaning or changes in production cycles.
Think about hazards to health, such as manual handling, use of chemicals and causes of work-related stress.
For each hazard, think about how employees, contractors, visitors or members of the public might be harmed.
Involve your employees, as an employer you might not have a deep understanding of all the day to day tasks other people are doing and therefore what risks they face. Asking them for input will only help you create a more complete risk assessment.
Some workers might have specific requirements, for example, young workers, migrant workers, new or expectant mothers and people with disabilities. You should think about the requirements for all of your workforce and as mentioned previously, if you’re unsure ask them for input.
Once you have identified the hazards, decide how likely it is that someone could be harmed and how serious it could be. This is assessing the level of risk.
The key factors:
Things you should ask yourself:
Once you have considered all the risks your next task is to put the controlling measures you have identified in place. You’re not expected to eliminate all risks, but you need to do everything ‘reasonably practicable’ to protect people from harm. This means balancing the level of risk against the measures needed to control the real risk in terms of money, time or trouble.
You can find more detailed guidance on controls relevant to your business and our in-house assessment team will also give you suggestions on anything they feel is missing.
If you employ 5 or more people, you must record your significant findings, these include.
Once the controlling measures have been put in place you must review them to make sure they are working as you would have hoped. You should also review them if any of the following scenarios could take place:
Update your risk assessment record with any changes you make.
Here are some example scenarios from the HSE as to whether having a risk assessment would apply to your business or job role, especially for those who are self-employed. You can also find templates for work-specific risk assessments.
Yes, you will have duties as an employer and will need to take steps to ensure the health, safety and welfare at work of your employees.
No, as an employer you have duties under health and safety law to satisfy yourself that the contractor you choose can do the job safely and without risks to health. The proposed changes will not alter the duties you have as an employer to contractors.
If you use bleaching agents or similar chemicals then yes, the law will apply to you. If you are simply washing and cutting hair, then health and safety law will no longer apply.
No, health and safety law will not apply to you.
No, health and safety law will not apply to you.
No, health and safety law will not apply to you.
No, health and safety law will not apply to you.
It doesn’t depend on whether you’re at home; it is the work activity that matters. So, if you’re working on a client’s accounts, the law will no longer apply. If you’re writing a manual, which someone will use to operate machinery, then the law will still apply.
Yes, your clients will act on your advice and this affects how other people do their job.
Yes, you have specific responsibilities under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations
For the full Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 use the link below.