edp Safety Systems
total Management of Health and Safety
for every organisation
health, safety and environment consultants
Service Overview
General Risk Assessment
Call us on: 01744 766000
or fax on: 01744 766025
or email on:
enquiries@edp-uk.com.
Essential Services
H+S Services:
- Health and Safety Audit
- General Risk Assessment
- Specific Risk Assessment
- Fire Risk Assessment
- Manual Handling Risk Assessment
- COSHH Risk Assessment
- Display Screen Equipment Assessment
- Noise Risk Assessment
- Asbestos Survey (Type II)
- Competent Contractors Audit
- Access Consultancy
- Portable Appliance Testing
Overview
The philosophy around managing health and safety in the UK revolves around the concept of identifying hazards, assessing risks, defining control measures that adequately manage the risks and recording the findings.
Regulation 3 of the "Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations" is a legal requirement for all employers with 50 or more employees. It requires employers to carry out a suitable and sufficient assessment of signficant health and safety risks to which their employees and others are exposed as a result of the organisation's business activities.
The general risk assessment is the start of this process to identify areas of foreseeable risk. Depending on the type, size and complexity of the organisation, some areas of risk may need to be followed up with more specific risk assessments, such as COSHH (Control of Substances Hazardous to Health), DSE (Display Screen Equipment), MHO (Manual Handling Operations), Work at Height and others.
Objectives
Important aims of the General Risk Assessment are:
- To provide evidence that risks in relation to work and the workplace have been considered.
- That the organisation is complying with standards set out by relevant statutory provisions
- Where compliance is not yet achieved, that actions have been identified that will result in compliance.
In this context, "Relevant statutory provisions" include specific requirements in Regulations, Codes of Practice (Approved and others) and Official Guidance, in addition to the general provision of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act.
The completed General Risk Assessment identifies and records remedial actions that should be implemented in order to reduce the risk so far as is reasonably practicable.
Methodology
The Assessment involves a high level examination of the organisation's people, processes and premises, with the aim of identifying those areas of risk that are subject to health and safety legislation or other relevant statutory provisions.
Consequently, the assessment involves the following activities
- A visit to the premises to assess levels of compliance with UK Health and Safety law.
- Examination of available health and safety related documentation for the workplace, the work activities and the people employed.
- Interviews with representatives of the various jobs, including supervisory/management as considered necessary.
- Inspection of all areas to identify the types of hazards present in the workplace.
- Examination and review of the Procedures and Measures in place for controlling risks to health and safety.
To carry out the assessment effectively, the assessor may need access to all areas of the premises.
For smaller organisations and those where there are few risks and those that exist are relatively low level, a General Risk Assessment may be all that is required.
For more complex situations, however, the General Risk Assessment may only identify areas of risk and the recommended actions may include the need to carry out more specific risk assessments.
Duration
In most cases, a General Risk Assessment for a single site can be completed in a day.
However, it needs to be understood that this time can be extended substantially in situations, for example, where there are many, substantial or complex risks involved or where the site is widely dispersed.