Week 1

Introduction to Equipment

Health and Safety

Conducting risk assessments prior to and dynamically during the survey are fundamental to any job undertaken, to ensure the safety of yourself and others. In this activity, you are asked to prepare a risk assessment for conducting a topographical survey of a predefined area.

How to conduct a risk assessment

What is the hazard?

Identify what it is about the equipment, survey, location etc that could injure or harm yourself or others in the area.

Who might be harmed?

Think about the person who might be put at risk from undertaking the survey.  it is not always just the person who is completing the task that might be put at risk. An example of this, is dust created by one machine can dissipate into the surrounding area, putting others in the room at risk too. When working outside, also consider the risks for the general public. Some examples of people to consider are:

-        Yourself

-        Staff

-        Students

-        Visitors

-        Public

-        People at a higher risk

How might they be harmed?

Now who might be harmed has been decided, it is important to establish how these users might be harmed, to allow for appropriate control measures to be established. For example, putting in control measures which only protect the operative, but still endanger others are inappropriate.

Existing control measures

Some existing control measures may already be in place at the time of the assessment, which may already be appropriate to the risk rating. When deciding on new control measures, it is important to use the hierarchy of control, such as by eliminating the hazard first, using a less risky alternative (substitution), such as by using water based paints instead of lead based, and then working down the hierarchy to Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), which should always be the last line of defence.

Risk rating

Risk rating can be broken down into severity and likelihood, with these two multiplied together to achieve the final risk rating. While within Health and Safety we often think of the severity of harm to people, it is good to also consider other areas, such as the environment and assets when assessing the work on a site. For example, if any work creates catastrophic harm to the environment, this may also impact on people and mean the work may not be able to continue.

Once you have obtained the risk rating, the number of this will determine the extent of control measures that are needed. For example, if you achieve a risk rating of 25, you should immediately improve your control measures and stop all work from continuing. Whereas for a risk rating of 6 you would be able to continue but also consider whether any improvement can be made.

Additional control measures

Should the risk rating be too high with the control measures that are already in place, additional measures can be implemented using the same process as above, to mitigate the risk further and produce the new residual risk rating.

Residual risk rating

The residual risk rating follows the same process as the initial risk rating, however this should also take into account the additional control measures created in the previous step.

Initial sign off by assessor

Sign and date in this box to say that you have assessed all reasonable risks associated with your project and the date that the risk assessment was completed.

Final sign off

It is good practice to have an independent person, other than the person who wrote the risk assessment to check the quality and ensure that nothing has been omitted from the assessment.

Risk Assessment Template