The fundamental cornerstone of an organisations Health and Safety arrangements is the identification of potentially hazardous areas and activities together with the health and safety risks to people involved in each of those areas and activities, having regard to Health and Safety law  (Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999,   Regulation 3).

A Risk Assessment is the process whereby hazards are identified on site. The likelihood of the hazard resulting in harm is then assessed for each of the hazards. The rating of risk can then be used to prioritise controls which will reduce the risk of injury to a tolerable level.

Once the hazards have been identified, the first consideration is to determine whether it is possible to remove the hazard completely. Where it is not possible to remove the hazard then it must be controlled. The following steps detail Kelburn Risk Management's risk assessment

Your Kelburn Risk Management health and safety consultant would identify the health and safety hazards on site and which health and safety risk assessments would be needed. These would then be completed for the premises.

For each hazard, Kelburn Risk Management utilises industry best practice to identify and set control standards and during the risk assessment process, your Kelburn Risk Management health and safety consultant would make judgements as to how far you are complying with them; these judgements would be based upon

• physical observation
• evaluation of safety documentation
• discussions with key personnel

Where your Kelburn Risk Management's health and safety consultant considers the existing controls on site to be inadequate, you would receive risk improvement advice together with photographic evidence if appropriate.

The next step is for your Kelburn Risk Management health and safety consultant to determine the likelihood of injury / adverse occurrence and the likely severity of injury (in terms of harm) for each risk assessment. These would be expressed in scores, which would then be multiplied together to give the risk rating. By rating risk this way resources may be targeted in the right areas.

The specific format of the Workplace Health and Safety Risk Assessment report would be bespoke to you, the client, however it would include the following:

• Executive Summary - including a summary of the key findings and conclusionsHealth and Safety Action Plan - containing a prioritised plan detailing any risk improvements
• Workplace Risk Assessment - containing a table of risk ratings listed by subject
• Protocol - confirming the risk assessment methodology and risk rating advice and priority definitions

With specific reference to the Health and Safety action plan, advice would be prioritised on the likelihood of enforcement action being taken, i.e. the failure would potentially result in:

• Prosecution and / or a Prohibition Notice being served
• Improvement Notice being served
• Warning letter being received
• Advice being issued