Employers
in each workplace have a general duty to ensure the safety and health of
workers in every aspect related to their work and the purpose of carrying out a
risk assessment is to enable the employer to take the measures necessary for
the safety and health protection of workers.
These measures include:
·
Prevention
of occupational risks
·
Providing
information to workers.
·
Providing
training to workers.
· Providing the organization and means to implement the necessary measures.
Purpose
of risk assessment includes the prevention of occupational risks, and this
should always be the goal, it will not always be achievable in practice. Where
elimination of risks is not possible, the risks should be reduced and the
residual risk controlled. At a later stage, as part of a review programme, such
residual risk will be reassessed and the possibility of elimination of the
risk, perhaps in the light of new knowledge, can be reconsidered.
The
risk assessment should be structured and applied so as to help employers to:-
· Identify
the hazards created at work and evaluate the risks associated with these
hazards, to determine what measures they should take to protect the health and
safety of their employees and other workers, having due regard to legislative
requirements.
· Evaluate
the risks in order to make the best informed selection of work equipment,
chemical substances or preparations used, the fitting out of the workplace, and
the organization of work.
· Check
whether the measures in place are adequate.
· Priorities
action if further measures are found to be necessary as a result of the
assessment.
· Demonstrate
to themselves, the competent authorities, workers and their representatives
that all factors pertinent to the work have been considered, and that an
informed valid judgment has been made about the risks and the measures
necessary to safeguard health and safety.
· Ensure
that the preventive measures and the working and production methods, which are
considered to be necessary and implemented following a risk assessment, provide
an improvement in the level of worker's protection.
Risk assessments should be retained for a period of 3 years - if any of the participant/s involved are under 18, the records should be kept until they reach 21.
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