An assessment of site risk is a legal necessity that all employers who hire workers must carry out to make an assessment of working conditions, and the workplace, to help identify any health and safety risks. This sort of assessment then further creates efficient measures to control or prohibit any risks from occurring. This helps a company to avoid any kinds of lawsuits being established from injuries which happened in the workplace.
The legitimate part of site risk assessment arises from the legal concept of liability that requires that business owners and other public establishments must take responsible care to ensure for the safety and security of those who use these establishments. For example:
- The owners of a department store must carry out a site risk assessment to realise what potential risks there are on the store’s premises.
- As it might not be possible to foresee every single risk, they will be liable for any harm which has happened due to a danger that may have been prevented with the exercise of proper care.
What to Determine
Management can start a site risk assessment by the identification of any hazards in the workplace with expert assistance from the take 5 risk assessment booklet and via conducting a complete appraisal of the workplace and equipment.
- In the industrial and manufacturing sector, workers can check on the noise levels created by heavy industrial equipment.
- Management areas like hospitals and laboratories can look for any type of exposure to harmful pathogens and sharp items such as needles and scalpels.
The next step in a site risk assessment is to look for people who will most likely to be at risk by any identified risks. In the workplace, some areas of employees will be more at risk than some others. For example, a lab technician working with pathogens in some laboratory may be more at risk of an infection than the administrative staff on the front desk.
Safeguarding for Minimal Harm
When any type of risk has been determined, the next step is to work out how to control or put a halt to any risk from happening. This is the time where the management of the workplace is expected to conduct “reasonable care,” so as to put an end to or minimise any such happening. It might be impossible to put a halt to every single on site risk, but an employer or business owner is expected to undertake all expected precautions.
After every safety measure has been carried out, the management must then make future plans for site risk assessments to be conducted on a regular basis, to guarantee that the measures remain effective. These periodic site risk assessments will help to keep employers updated for any newly found workplace risks. Things like the introduction of any new types of equipment in the workplace or any other changes in the surroundings and day to day working conditions.
Every employee should be working in a risk free environment.
