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You must manage the health and safety risks in your workplace. To do this you need to decide whether you are doing enough to prevent harm. This is known as a risk assessment.

A risk assessment is not about creating huge amounts of paperwork, but rather about taking sensible measures to control the risks in your workplace. You are probably already taking steps to protect your employees, but your risk assessment will tell you whether you should be doing more.

How do I assess the risks in my workplace?

The following steps form part of your risk assessment: 

• A good starting point is to walk around your workplace and look for any hazards. A hazard is anything that may cause harm.
• Then think about the risks. A risk is the chance, high or low, of somebody being harmed by the hazard, and how serious the harm could be.
• Think about how accidents could happen and who might be harmed. Ask your employees what they think the hazards are, as they may notice things that are not obvious to you and may have some good ideas on how to control the risks. Focus on the real risks - those that are most likely to cause harm.
• Consider the measures you are already taking to control the risks and ask if there is anything you should do to make your workplace safer.
• Once you have identified the risks and what you need to do to control them, you should put the appropriate measures into place.
• Then record your findings. If you have fewer than five employees you don't have to write anything down but it is good practice to keep a record. An easy way to record your findings is to download the . 
• Take a look at the Health and Safety Executive (HSE)'s selection of . They show you what a completed risk assessment might look like for your type of business. You can use these as a guide when doing your own. 
• You can get more from HSE. 
• Few workplaces stay the same and sooner or later you will bring in new equipment, substances or procedures that could lead to new hazards. It makes sense to review your risk assessment on a regular basis. If anything significant changes, check your risk assessment and update it.

One of the most important aspects of your risk assessment is to accurately spot the potential hazards in your workplace.

When you work in a place every day it is easy to overlook some hazards, so here are some tips to help you find the ones that matter:

• Walk around your workplace and look at what could reasonably be expected to cause harm.
• Ask your employees or their representatives what they think. They may have noticed things that are not immediately obvious to you. See consult your employees on health and safety.
• Check manufacturers' instructions or data sheets for chemicals and equipment as they can be very helpful in spelling out the hazards and putting them in their true perspective.
• Have a look back at your accident and ill-health records. These often help to identify the less obvious hazards.
• Remember to think about long-term hazards to health (eg high levels of noise or exposure to harmful substances).

For some hazards there are particular control measures that are required by law. A few examples of activities with a recognised risk of harm are working at height, working with chemicals, machinery, and asbestos. Depending on the type of work you do there may be other risks that are relevant to your business.

The Health and Safety Executive Northern Ireland (HSENI) website has information on to help you decide what you need to do about different risks.

For each hazard you need to be clear about who might be harmed; it will help you identify the best way of managing the risk. That doesn't mean listing everyone by name, but rather identifying groups of people (eg 'people working in the storeroom' or 'passers-by').

Think about people who might not be in the workplace all the time, such as visitors, contractors and maintenance workers.

Take members of the public into account if they could be hurt by your work activities.

If you share a workplace with another business, you will need to consider how your work affects others and how their work affects you and your staff. Talk to each other and make sure controls are in place.

In each case, identify how they might be harmed, i.e. what type of injury or ill health might occur. For example, 'shelf stackers may suffer back injury from repeated lifting of boxes'.

Groups at particular risk

Remember - some workers may have specific needs and may be at particular risk. Find information on health and safety considerations for the following groups:

•  (information available in a range of languages)

Having spotted the hazards, you then have to decide what to do about them. You don't have to try and remove all the risks but the law requires you to do everything 'reasonably practicable' to protect people from harm.

So, first, look at what you're already doing and the control measures you have in place. Ask yourself:

• Can I get rid of the hazard altogether?
• If not, how can I control the risks so that harm is unlikely?

Some practical steps you could take to reduce the hazards you have identified include:

• try a less risky option
• prevent access to the hazards
• organise your work to reduce exposure to the hazard
• issue protective equipment
• provide welfare facilities such as first aid and washing facilities
• involve and consult with staff

Improving health and safety need not cost a lot. For instance, placing a mirror on a dangerous blind corner to help prevent vehicle accidents is a low-cost precaution considering the risks. Failure to take simple precautions can cost you a lot more if an accident does happen.

Involve staff, so that you can be sure that what you propose to do will work in practice and won't introduce any new hazards. See consult your employees on health and safety.

It is important to accurately record the findings of your risk assessment. If you have fewer than five employees you don't have to write anything down. However, it is useful so that you can review it at a later date, if for example something changes.

An easy way to record your findings is to download and use the . This template also includes a section for your health and safety policy so you can record everything in one place.

When writing down your results, keep it simple. For example:

• 'Tripping over rubbish: bins provided, staff instructed, weekly housekeeping checks'
• 'Fume from welding: local exhaust ventilation used and regularly checked'

A risk assessment does not need to be perfect, but it must be 'suitable and sufficient'. The on the Health and Safety Executive website will give you an idea of what your risk assessment should look like.

What your records should include

It should show that:

• a proper check was made
• you asked who might be affected
• you dealt with all the obvious significant hazards, taking into account the number of people who could be involved
• the precautions are reasonable, and the remaining risk is low
• you involved your staff or their representatives in the process

Create an action plan

If, like many businesses, you find that there are quite a lot of improvements that you could make, big and small, don't try to do everything at once. Make a plan of action to deal with the most important things first.

A good plan of action often includes a mixture of different things such as:

• a few cheap or easy improvements that can be done quickly, perhaps as a temporary solution until more reliable controls are in place
• long-term solutions to those risks most likely to cause accidents or ill health
• long-term solutions to those risks with the worst potential consequences
• arrangements for training employees on the main risks that remain and how they are to be controlled
• regular checks to make sure that the control measures stay in place
• clear responsibilities - who will lead on what action and by when

Remember, prioritise and tackle the most important things first.

Once you have created your health and safety risk assessment, you should aim to review and revise it on a regular basis.

Why risk assessments need to be regularly revised

It's important to review and update your risk assessment because of the everyday changes that happen in all businesses. Few workplaces stay the same. Sooner or later, you will bring in new equipment, substances and procedures that could lead to new hazards. So it makes sense to review what you are doing on an ongoing basis.

How to review your health and safety risk assessment

Look at your risk assessment again:

• Have there been any changes?
• Are there improvements you still need to make?
• Have your workers spotted a problem?
• Have you learnt anything from accidents or near misses? 

Make sure your risk assessment stays up to date.

When you are running a business it's all too easy to forget about reviewing your risk assessment - until something has gone wrong and it's too late. Why not set a review date for this risk assessment now? Write it down and note it in your diary as an annual event.