Dave's Nuggets: Risk Assessment Gone Mad, or What?
Just how seriously do you take your risk assessment? After organisers of a village Christmas party were told they must carry out a risk assessment of their mince pies, is it time we carried out risk assessment of our workplace vending machines for low flying screw top bottles or water stations for their potential killer infectious agents, toxic chemicals and radiological hazards?
By the time employees have read their potentially hazardous workplace, they will have keeled over, anyway, of a serious case of dehydration. However, if you take risk assessment seriously, remember the key steps to successful assessment:-
- Identify the hazards
- Decide who might be harmed and how
- Evaluate the risks and decide on precautions
- Record your findings and implement them
- Review your assessment and update if necessary
A number of useful websites are available for reference. Try www.hse.gov.uk to begin with.
The risk attached to reading this article is that you now need to devote the rest of your working life to producing the necessary documents to satisfy all interested parties.
image courtesy of Sharkey