A Risk Assessment is a careful examination of what could cause harm to people in order to ensure sufficient precautions are being taken to minimise risk of it happening.
A risk assessment is made up of five simple steps:
- Identify the hazards (and the risks associated with them)
- Decide who is at risk and in what way
- Investigate the precautions currently in place and identify what else could /should be done to reduce the risk
- List the risks which need further precautions or are subject to specific restrictions
- Record all this and brief those at risk on the contents of the risk assessment