Risk Assessment Awareness

About this course.

This course raises awareness of risk assessment — what it is, why it is a legal requirement, and how to carry one out competently. Risk assessment is the foundation of managing health and safety at work: it is the structured process by which you identify what could cause harm, judge how serious that harm could be and how likely it is, and decide what reasonable steps to take to prevent it. Almost every other duty in health and safety law flows from a sound risk assessment, so getting it right protects people and underpins legal compliance. The course explains what a risk assessment is and what it enables you to do; the key definitions of hazard, risk, likelihood and severity; the legal framework set by the Health and Safety at Work etc.

Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999; the well-known five steps of risk assessment from HSE guidance INDG163; qualitative and quantitative techniques and how to use a likelihood × severity risk matrix; how to decide on precautions using the hierarchy of control and the general principles of prevention; how to record significant findings; when and how to review; and the different types of risk assessment used across UK workplaces. A fully worked example shows the process applied to a real task. By the end of the course you will understand not just the mechanics of completing a risk assessment form, but the thinking behind it — why a risk assessment must be ‘suitable and sufficient’, why involving the people who do the work matters, and why a written form on a shelf is worthless unless the controls are actually put into practice and kept under review.