Importance of planning

Organizations must establish a system for effectively identifying, implementing, and maintaining health and safety
requirements.

 Organizational objectives should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, reasonable, and time-bound.
 Planning requires that an organization keeps up-to-date with legal requirements

Principles and practice of risk assessment

A formalized process of identifying hazards, assessing the risk that they generate, and then either eliminating or
controlling the risk.

LIFE EXAMPLE :

Risk assessment is a process that people do automatically all the time. When you cross the road, you carry out a risk
assessment; when you drive a car you carry out a risk assessment; when you boil a kettle you carry out a risk
assessment. But, of course, this assessment is normally done very quickly and without conscious thought or effort. If
you are not very good at this process then you will not live long.

Objectives of Risk Assessment

Risk assessment aims to ensure that hazards are eliminated or risks minimized by the correct application of relevant
standards.

The objectives of risk assessment are to prevent:

 Death and personal injury.

 Other types of loss incidents.
 The occurrence of breaches of statute law which might lead to enforcement action and/or prosecution.
 The direct and indirect costs that follow from accidents.

Types of Incidents

A failure to adequately assess risk in the workplace will lead to incidents, which can be categorized into various types
depending on the outcome:

 Accident - An unplanned, unwanted event that leads to injury, damage, or loss. Any deliberate attempt to cause
injury or loss is therefore not an accident.
 Injury accident - an unplanned, unwanted event which leads to personal injury of some sort, e.g. a worker on the
ground is struck on the head and killed by a brick dropped by another worker on a 5 m high scaffold.
 Damage-only accident - an unplanned, unwanted event that leads to damage to equipment or property, e.g. a
lorry driver misjudges the turning circle of his vehicle and knocks over a barrier at the edge of a site entrance,
crushing the barrier beyond repair.
 Near miss - an unplanned, unwanted event that had the potential to lead to injury, damage, or loss (but did not
do so), e.g. a worker drops a spanner from a scaffold narrowly missing a pedestrian, but no injury or harm was
caused.
 Dangerous occurrence - a specified event that has to be reported to the relevant authority by statute law.
 Ill-health incident - an unplanned, unwanted event that leads to ill-health of some sort.

Accident Ratios

Accident ratios (often referred to as accident triangles) display the relationship between the numbers of accidents
with different outcomes.

The important message of the accident triangle is that serious outcome accidents tend to happen rarely and
randomly. They are notoriously difficult to predict (if they were not, it would be easy to prevent them from
happening).

Near misses/incidents, on the other hand, happen far more frequently (600 times more frequently). Many near
misses will be minor events of little or no consequence; if they happen again there would be no serious outcome. But
some near misses will have the potential for very serious injury.

The Risk Assessors

Risk assessments should be carried out by competent people. In this context, the word "competent" would mean
people who have sufficient training, knowledge, experience, and other abilities.

A risk assessment might be carried out by one person. This is not ideal in many instances since it relies on one
person's opinion and judgment. Ideally, risk assessment will be carried out by a team. This allows for various views
and opinions to be taken into account and so may result in a more successful assessment.

The composition of a risk assessment team :

 Workers familiar with the tasks and areas to be assessed.

 Health and safety specialists, such as safety practitioners and occupational health nurses.
 Technical specialists, such as mechanical and electrical engineers.
 Line managers responsible for the tasks or areas being assessed.
 Worker safety representatives.

The size and composition of the team will vary depending on the nature of the workplace and the complexity of the
risk assessment process being used.

Note that all members of the team don't need to be competent in the risk assessment process, simply for some or
one of the team members to be a competent person. The involvement of non-competent persons is useful for several
reasons:

 Those team members may identify hazards and risks that might otherwise be missed (two pairs of eyes are better
than one).
 They may ask questions and propose solutions that might otherwise not be considered.
 It allows experience to be safely gained in the practice of risk assessment.
 It facilitates employee awareness, involvement, and consultation and so enhances the safety culture.

Carrying out risk assessment- Steps

1. Identify the hazards.

2. Identify the people who might be harmed and how.
3. Evaluate the risk and decide on precautions.
4. Record the significant findings and implement them.
5. Review and update as necessary.

1-Identifying Hazards
Hazards are the things with the potential to cause harm. It is important to identify both the safety hazards that might
give rise to immediate physical injury (such as moving parts of machinery, vehicles, and potholes in a pedestrian
walkway), and the health hazards that might cause disease or ill-health (such as asbestos, loud noise, and repetitive
handling). This hazard identification might be done by task analysis, reference to guidance or manufacturers'
information, or by inspection of the workplace.

Remember that a risk assessment is a tool for identifying all the significant hazards that exist in a workplace - all the
things that have the potential to cause harm. It is not a tool for only identifying those hazards that are poorly
controlled.

Hazard Identification Methods

 Inspections - A formal inspection can reveal the various hazards that are
present and that need to be considered in the risk assessment. One problem
with this method is that it is being carried out in an existing workplace and so
any identified hazards already exist. This is opposite to the general principle
of safety management, which is that the hazard should not be introduced
until after the risk assessment has been carried out and the controls put in
place.
 Task Analysis - This is a useful method for identifying hazards since it allows hazards to be spotted before work
starts, rather than after the work has started. Task analysis involves breaking a job down into component steps
and identifying the hazards associated with each step so that a safe working method can then be established to
deal with each hazard. This can be done before work starts as part of the planning process and is how Safe
Systems of Work (SSWs) are developed.

 Legislation - Knowledge of the legal standards that apply to a particular workplace is an important aid to
identifying any significant hazards that need to be identified.

 Manufacturers' Information - When a new item of plant, machinery, or equipment is purchased it usually comes
with an instruction book that contains information about all the related hazards and instructions for safe use,
cleaning, and maintenance. Similarly, when a new substance is purchased, it comes with labels and a Material
Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) that identifies the hazards of the substance.

 Incident Data - Internal accident and near-miss data can be useful in identifying hazards. The main limitation
here is that a hazard may be very significant but may not yet have caused harm to the organization and may
therefore go unnoticed. External data, such as national statistics published by the authorities, can be more useful
since it identifies the real hazards and risks based on much larger population size.

2- Identifying the Population at Risk

When identifying people at risk, think not only of those carrying out particular activities but also of those who may
be affected by those activities. Individuals do not need to be named; rather general groups or populations
are identified.

 Workers/operators - may be directly involved with the activity, working nearby or passing by.
 Maintenance staff - are often involved in the removal of the usual safeguards present in the workplace because
of the nature of maintenance work (e.g. the lift engineer who has to climb onto the top of a lift carriage in the lift
shaft, or the engineer who has to remove machine guards to repair a breakdown).
 Cleaners - may be exposed to greater risk because cleaning work may involve the removal of safeguards or
additional activities that create additional risk (e.g. window cleaning from an access cradle).
 Contractors - may be carrying out work independent of the work being carried out by employees or may be
working alongside employees.
 Visitors - to the workplace may not be working but are still exposed to certain types of risk (e.g. fire).
 Members of the public - may simply be in the vicinity of the workplace, yet still affected by certain types of
hazards.

3- Evaluating the Risk and Adequacy of Current Controls

Risk can be qualitatively described using words such as "very high", "high", "medium", "low" or "insignificant". The
problem with these or similar words is that they are opinion-based and it may therefore be difficult to achieve
consistent outcomes from their use. An alternative approach that is commonly adopted is to break risk down into
two parts and define each separately:

Risk = Likelihood x Severity.

Then by the simple substitution of a word for a score, it is possible to calculate a risk rating for a particular hazard.

Likelihood Severity

 1 = extremely unlikely  1 = very minor injury

 2 = unlikely  2 = first aid injury
 3 = possible  3 = lost time injury
 4 = likely  4 = hospital treatment
 5 = very probable  5 = disabling injury

Principles of prevention

When hazards are identified through the risk assessment process it is necessary to decide on the
precautions needed to control those hazards to an acceptable level. This is the most important part
of the risk assessment -identifying the further action that is needed and taking that action.

 Eliminate the hazard - Remove the source of the risk. This is the most effective option since removal of the
hazard eliminates the risk associated with that hazard.
 Create a safe place - Use engineering controls to change the hazard itself or guard or enclose the hazard in some
way to prevent people from coming into contact with it.
 Create a safe person- Develop safe working methods or systems of work so that people are exposed to hazards in
a controlled manner. This requires the provision of information, instruction, training, and supervision along with
good enforcement of safe behavior.

4-Recording Significant Findings

The significant findings of a risk assessment should be recorded to provide a statement of the hazards in the
workplace, the extent of the risks that they present, and the action taken to control those risks. There is no standard
format for risk assessments so different organizations can adopt a format that is most appropriate to their
circumstances.

Typical content would include:

 Identification of the activity/area assessed and of the significant hazards.

 Identification of groups at risk and those especially at risk.
 Evaluation of the risks and the adequacy of existing control measures.
 Action plans for implementing further precautions needed.
 Date of assessment and name of the competent person carrying out the assessment.
 Review date.

5-situations that might trigger a review of a risk assessment:

A significant change to a matter that the risk assessment relates to:

• Process
• Substances
• Equipment
• Workplace environment
• Personnel
• Legal standards.
There is reason to suspect that the assessment is not valid: Monitoring should be done

• Accident
• Near miss
• Ill-health.

Special Cases and Vulnerable Workers

risk assessment has to focus on one person / group of workers because they are more vulnerable to particular
hazards (or more at risk).

Young Persons

A young person is often defined by local law (e.g. in the UK a young person is anyone under the age of 18 years).

There are several reasons why a young person might be more vulnerable to risk in the workplace:

• Lack of experience in workplaces in general.

• Physical and, perhaps, mental immaturity.
• Poor perception of risk.
• Heavily influenced by peer group pressure.
• Eager to show a willingness to work.
• Less developed communication skills.

For these reasons, you often need to think more carefully about the work that a young person is doing. It may be
necessary to:

• Carry out risk assessments specifically with young persons in mind.

• Prohibit a young person from carrying out certain high-risk activities (e.g. operating high-risk machinery).
• Restrict their work patterns and hours (no night shift work or overtime).
• Train and supervise them to a greater degree than other workers.
• Provide mentors to monitor and supervise young person’s more closely than other workers and to
provide clear lines of communication.
• Provide specific health surveillance.

Principles of Control and basic hierarchy of risk reduction measures

Some general principles of prevention can be applied to eliminate hazards and reduce risk:

1. Avoid risks - where possible.

2. Evaluate risks which cannot be avoided - through the risk assessment process.
3. Combat risks at source - by going to the source of the problem directly (e.g. if there is a noise hazard in the
workplace, tackle the source of the noise).
4. Adapt work to suit the individual - by applying good ergonomic principles to job and workplace design (e.g. if
people are becoming fatigued when carrying out repetitive work introduce job rotation).
5. Adapt to technical progress - by taking advantage of new technology as it becomes available (e.g. buy mobile
phones for lone workers).
6. Replace the dangerous with the non-dangerous or less dangerous - by substituting one hazard with something
else that is less hazardous (e.g. replace a corrosive chemical with one that does the same job but is classified as
"irritant" and therefore less harmful).
7. Develop a coherent overall prevention policy by consistently using the same approach across the whole
organization.
8. Give priority to collective protective measures over individual protective measures - by creating a workplace
that is safe for all rather than relying on measures that only protect one worker at a time (e.g. install a guard rail
rather than rely on PPE).
9. Give appropriate instructions to workers - workers must receive information on the correct systems of work to
be adopted, and the organization must also ensure that these instructions are followed through the provision of
adequate supervision.
 General Hierarchy of Controls

Sometimes one control measure is effective in reducing the risk to an acceptable standard; in other instances, a
combination of different types is needed.
Safety signs

1. Prohibitory signs (pictogram on white background, red

circle, crossed line)
2. Mandatory icons (white icon on a blue background)
3. Warning signs (triangle-shaped, black pictogram on a yellow
background)
4. Safe location, facilities, emergency exits (white icon on
green background)
5. Firefighting equipment (white icon on a red background)

If it's a matter of safety - namely, safety badges enable everyone

to speak and understand the same language, regardless of
nationality.

Personal protective equipment PPE

Equipment or clothing that is worn or held by a worker that protects

them from one or more risks to their safety or health.

Types

• Ear defenders for noise.

• Gloves to prevent contact with substances hazardous to the
skin.
• Respiratory protection against substances hazardous by
inhalation (breathing in).
• Eye protection against splashes of chemicals and molten metals, mists, sprays and dust, projectiles, and radiation
including bright lights.

The duty of the employer to:

1. Supply suitable PPE where risks cannot be controlled by other more effective methods.

"Suitable" means:

• Appropriate for the risks and the conditions.

• Ergonomic (i.e. user-friendly).
• It fits.
• It does not increase overall risk.
 • It complies with any relevant standards
2. Ensure that when two or more items of PPE have to be worn together, they are compatible.
3. Provide suitable storage accommodation for PPE.
4. Provide information, instruction, and training to workers on the PPE they are expected to wear.
5. Enforce the use of PPE.
6. Replace or repair damaged or lost items.

Source of HS information in the industry

Some of these are internal such as crash notes for one organization, others are external to one organization, such as
financial security data cards issued by the manufacturer (MSDS).

Developing and Implementing a Safe System of Work

A safe system of work is a formal procedure based on a systematic examination of work to identify hazards. It defines
safe methods of working that eliminate those hazards or minimize the risks associated with them.

We can identify three key elements from this definition of a safe system of work (SSW):

 The SSW is formal - documented or recorded in some way.

 It results from a systematic examination of work to identify the hazards - it is the result of risk assessment.
 It defines safe methods - it is the safe procedure or work instruction.
 Specific Examples of Safe Systems of Work

Working in Confined Spaces

A confined space can be defined as "any place such as a chamber, tank, vat, silo, pit, well, pipe, sewer, flue, or similar,
in which by its enclosed nature there is a foreseeable risk of:

 Fire or explosion.
 Loss of consciousness or asphyxiation arising from gas, fumes, vapor, or lack of oxygen.
 Drowning.
 Asphyxiation(chocking) as a result of entrapment in a free-flowing solid.
 Loss of consciousness as a result of high air temperature.

Note that a confined space has two characteristics:

1. An enclosed nature (ventilation will be restricted and access/egress may be difficult).

2. One or more of the foreseeable specified risks exist

General principles

 Do not work inside a confined space if it is possible to do the work in some other way.
 If confined space entry is the only way to do the work, then a competent person must carry out a risk
assessment.
 A safe system of work must be developed for the confined space entry.
 Emergency arrangements must be put in place as a part of that safe system of work.
 Confined space entry must be under permit-to-work control only.
 All personnel must be trained

Lone Working

Lone workers might be defined as "workers who are separated from their work colleagues".

Many people carry out their work in this way, perhaps all the time or on a regular or occasional basis, e.g. sales
representatives; installation, repair, and maintenance staff; cleaners and night security workers, etc.

Note that a lone worker may not be alone: they may be surrounded by people, but those people are not their work
colleagues, but possibly others such as members of the public or customers.

The hazards that a lone worker may encounter will be the same as those of their colleagues working together, but
the risks may be higher because:

 They lack assistance to do the work and if things go wrong.

 Communication with colleagues and management is more difficult.

To manage the risks associated with lone working a risk assessment must be carried out and a safe system of work
developed.

Various control measures may have to be implemented in the safe system of work:

 No lone working for certain high-risk activities (such as confined space entry).
 Arrangements for remote supervision.
 Procedures for logging workers' locations when alone working.
 The use of mobile phones or radios to ensure good communication.
 The issue of lone worker alarm systems to raise the alarm and pinpoint the worker.
 Procedures to be adopted by workers when lone working.
 Emergency procedures.
 Training for workers in those procedures.

Working and Travelling Abroad

Working abroad is not the same as going on holiday - it is a change of workplace and with that comes additional
hazards. Whilst travelling the worker may also be "lone working" and as such adequate controls should be in place to
manage these risks too.

Arrangements are likely to cover the following key topic areas:

 Pre- and post-visit briefings.

 Insurance arrangements.
 Personal health advice and vaccinations.
 Financial arrangements.
 Personal security training and advice.
 Advice on cultural differences and requirements.
 Accommodation.
 In-country travel.
 Emergency arrangements.
 24-hour organization contacts.

One of the biggest risks associated with international travel is personal health. Up-to-date advice must be obtained
before traveling. Some of the precautions that may need to be considered are:

 Vaccination.
 Pre-trip medical examination.
 Medical insurance.
 Training on personal health care.
 Emergency medical provision.
 Post-trip medical check-up.

Work on Live Electrical Systems

The high risk associated with working on or near live electrical systems means that this type of work is usually subject
to permit control. In particular, permits are usual for work on or near high-voltage systems.

A permit system is used to ensure that:

 Working live is justified (i.e. it is not possible to work with the power off).
 All precautions are in place.
 The workers are competent to do the work.

Machinery Maintenance

Maintenance work often involves the removal or disabling of safeguards and control systems. For large, complex
industrial machinery more than one person may be involved in the work and they may be required to work inside the
machinery. This can generate a high risk that might be best controlled using a permit system.

A permit system is used to ensure that:

 Work is carefully planned, assessed, and controlled.

 The nature of the work is communicated to those who need to know about it.
 Power sources are isolated and locked off.
 Stored energy is released or secured.
 The workers are competent to do the work.