The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has published revised risk assessment guidance which aims to help businesses spend less time dealing with red tape and more time on putting practical actions into effect. The revised guidance provides examples that spell out, in plain English, what is - and what is not - expected.
The original guidance - Five Steps to Risk Assessment - was first published in 1993. This revision has simplified the guidance to make it even easier for normal business people to use and not just health and safety professionals. It also places greater emphasis on making sure that decisions are actually put into practice.
The 11 page booklet highlights the following five steps to risk assessment:
- Step 1: Identify the hazards
- Step 2: Decide who might be harmed and how
- Step 3: Evaluate the risks and decide on precaution
- Step 4: Record your findings and implement them
- Step 5: Review your assessment and update if necessary
The booklet is supported by examples of what a risk assessment might look like with the emphasis on the fact that risk assessment need not be difficult or overcomplicated. For most risk assessments, simple bullet points are more than suitable.
HSE's Deputy Chief Executive, Jonathan Rees commented:
"We want to save lives, not tie businesses up in red tape - good risk assessment is the way to achieve this. Risk assessment is at the heart of sensible health and safety. We believe it should be a practical way of protecting people from real harm and suffering, not a bureaucratic back-covering exercise. On its own paperwork never saved a life, it needs to be a means to an end, resulting in actions that protect people in practice.
"I hope that this new, more straightforward guidance will help managers understand what's expected of them and get more focus on the kind of risks that cause real harm and suffering - the ones that killed 220 workers last year and resulted in 35 million working days being lost. This guide takes the user through the process step-by-step with the minimum of fuss to achieve this aim."
Copies of Five Steps to Risk Assessment, INDG163(rev2), are available from:
HSE Books, PO Box 1999, Sudbury, Suffolk CO10 2WA
Tel: 01787-881165 or fax: 01787-313995.
Priced publications are also available from good booksellers. Alternatively the leaflet can be downloaded free from the HSE website at: HSE - Risk Management
