Hazard management procedure

Having identified the hazards, decide how to manage them.

Review your current practices; consider the controls you have in place and how the work is organised. Compare this with good practice principles and see if there is more you should be doing to meet these standards.

Apply the hierarchy of control:

• Elimination – can I remove the hazard altogether? If not, how can I control the risks so that harm is unlikely?
• Substitution – is there a less risky option such as using a less hazardous chemical.
• Isolation – involves physically separating the source of harm from people by distance or using barriers for example installing guard rails around exposed edges and holes in floors; using remote control systems to operate machinery; storing chemicals in a fume cabinet.
• Engineering – prevent access to the hazard such as by guarding, isolation, modifying plant and equipment and use of lifting equipment.
• Administration – training, development of standard operating procedures or rotating people through a job.
• PPE – issue personal protective equipment – clothing, footwear, goggles etc and provide welfare facilities such as first aid and washing facilities for removal of contamination.

Involve workers and health and safety representatives to assist you in the development of risk control measures. As the duty holder you must ensure that the controls are fit for purpose, suitable for the nature and duration of the work and are installed and set up correctly.

A risk assessment is the process of determining the level of risk involved and the likelihood of injury, illness or death occurring. It is a formal safety process which identifies all the risks associated with an activity. Once identified, each risk is analysed on a couple of important dimensions, and then controls are put in place to mitigate or eliminate as many risks as possible – using the analysis to prioritise certain risks.

The likelihood that someone will be harmed can be estimated by considering:

• How often is the task done? Does this make the harm more or less likely?
• How often are people near the hazard? How close do people get to it?
• Has it ever happened before, either in your workplace or somewhere else? How often?

After you identify the likelihood that a particular risk will affect the work activity you are completing, you need to determine the magnitude of the consequences or effects that may result.

Determining if the risk is low to high on a scale comes from assessing the risk’s likelihood along with its significant effect.

To rate the likelihood of a business activity not being properly performed complete a risk assessment.

• Likelihood: is assessed on the assumption that there are no existing risk management and compliance processes in place.
• Consequence: rating the consequence of not properly performing the business activity quantifies damage in terms of financial loss to PEER Construction.

Assign the risk rating based on a combination of the risk rating using the tables below.

For hazard reporting, follow the Hazard reporting policy.