Health and Safety Update

Published on 1st February 2011

Identifying and preventing hazards in the workplace

Welcome to February’s Health & Safety Update.

This month we take a look at some guidance by the Health & Safety Executive to help you identify and evaluate the hazards in your workplace – so you can provide a safe working environment for all and avoid costly litigation.

Identifying hazards in your workplace

Start by understanding what a hazard is. Depending on the nature of your business, the types of hazards will vary.

It’s possible to separate the many types of workplace hazards into four main categories:

  • Physical - hazards due to a transfer of energy between an object and a worker (e.g. falling from a height, a burn from a hot oven, or the loss of an arm in a power takeoff).
  • Chemical - hazards due to contact with chemicals (e.g. cleaners, pesticides, fertilisers).
  • Biological - hazards due to contact with living organisms or their by-products (e.g. bacteria, virus, grain dust).
  • Ergonomic - poor workstation layout/design

Ask around and find out from employees. Your employees are a great source of information, since they are the ones who are responsible for carrying out the tasks on a daily basis, and hence, they will be aware of the potential hazards present at the workplace.

Check regularly for safety at the job. Assess your workers' daily tasks and check whether there are potential hazards at each step of the process. If at all you do come across any risks, inform the staff.

Examine the types of injuries and illnesses, as well as the severity and regularity of them at the workplace. These are just a few ways to help you identify workplace hazards.

Decide who might be harmed

For each hazard that you identify you need to be clear about who is at risk of being harmed. This will help you to decide on the best way to manage that risk. Instead of listing every single employee, identify them as groups of people. For example, visitors, contractors.

In each case, identify how they might be harmed, i.e. what type of injury or ill health might occur. For example, ‘shelf stackers may suffer back injury from repeated lifting of boxes’.

Evaluate the risks

Once you have identified the risks and who is most likely to be at harm, you must then decide what action to take. The law requires you to do everything ‘reasonably practicable’ to protect people from harm.

Please see the example risk assessment below as guidance:

HAZARD
 CONTROL
Chemical
 Substitution for less hazardous alternatives
Engineering control such as extract ventilation
Training employees
Personal protective equipment
Fire
 Detection/warning systems
Fire drills
Extinguishers
Signs
Suitable storage facilities for substances and goods
Fire retardant furniture and fittings
Electricity
 Insulated tools
Residual circuit breakers
Fuses
Earthing
Inspection and testing of systems and appliances
Noise
 Reduce the noise at source
Isolation
Ear protection
Demarcation of danger zones

It’s important that you record all significant findings and review at regular intervals, or when a change to practice or process occurs, or following an accident.

Find out more about our Health & Safety service by calling  one of our qualified experts on 0800 0482 737 or contact us online and we'll call you back.

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