Consultancy: Risk assessment services

Several regulations contain a specific requirement for a risk assessment to be carried out by a competent person. Examples are the regulations to do with VDU work, use of hazardous substances, work in noisy environments, and where hazardous manual handling takes place.

In addition, the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 act as a "catch-all", and call for an assessment of all risks arising from every work activity.

Assessments must be "suitable and sufficient" i.e. they must correctly identify the hazards and quantify the risks. Except in the most simple of cases, they must be recorded.

At least once! Thereafter they need to be regularly reviewed. Re-assessment may be needed when a workplace or task is altered, before new materials or processes are used, or after any incident that throws doubt on the validity of the original findings.

This varies according to the type of assessment. For example, about 50 VDU workstation assessments could be carried out in three days, whereas a noise assessment will generally require a day on site and a day for writing up the report.

If you already use a particular report format, or have something in mind, we will work to your own design. Alternatively we will present the assessment in the form that we have found to be most suitable.