What is the Purpose of a Risk Assessment?

What is the purpose of a risk assessment?

The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires that:

“every employer shall make a suitable & sufficient assessment of the risks to the health & safety of their employees to which they are exposed to while at work”

And if you have five or more employees you need to ensure that these processes are written down and accessible to your employees.

The aim when completing a risk assessment is to identify anything with the potential to cause injury and ill health to you, your employees, members of the public, clients, staff or other contractors. When a risk assessment is complete you can issue appropriate control measures to protect employees and others against harm or injury.

If the assessment identifies a significant risk to health and safety, you as an employer or self-employed person must implement measures to either eliminate or control the risk to a reasonable level.

A health and safety risk assessment needs to:

Be appropriate to the nature of the work.
Be proportionate to the level of risk and the nature of that work.
Identify and prioritise the control measures required to protect the Health & Safety of employees and other persons who may be affected by that work activity.