Posted By Steve Holliday Does anybody have a tried & tested system for using generic risk assessments for maintenance tasks? Formulating an effective risk assessment program is proving difficult, without going down the road of one assessment per job. Obviously there are many occasions where maintenance poses hazards individual to the particular job, where a specific assessment would have to be completed, but where possible we would like to use generic assessments. In other areas risk assessments are completed for general tasks and the safe system generated is then communicated to staff via a "How To" instruction document. Any help greatfully recieved. Steve

Posted By T. Fowler I shy away from copious amounts of paper describing risk assessment of numerous tasks associated with maintenance operations and concentrate on the big risks. Some would say that unless you assess every task you will never know if a particular hazard exists but, assuming that the persons carrying out the assessment are competent in the area concerned they will know where the major hazards lie. Again, assuming that the staff are qualified generally in the field in question, the line of how far to take specific assessments can be drawn higher than where unqualified staff are employed. My approach is this in relation to maintenance work carried out by our engineers on X-ray equipment. I know what the common hazards are: Radiation; HV Electricity; the moving of heavy equipment - manually and using lifting gear; working out of normal hours; Collection of CF6 gas in pits; use of degreasing agents etc. Having identified these common hazards, controls are established and staff trained accordingly. So I don't assess each and every task but rather ensure that when these qualified people encounter these hazards in the many and varies tasks and situations they arrive at they are armed to make the right decisions. It is a top down approach that concentrates on the big ones and gains credibility for the system because we are not fiddling with insignificant risks.

Posted By Jim Sweetman Steve, You raise a familar point, that may be an 'old chestnut' to a number of people. It's amazing how people react to these encumbrances called Risk Assessments, I'm not surprised, as they really are a pain in the butt (the RA's, not the people)! In all sincerity, maintenance tasks cause a number of problems as they are so repetitive and everyone 'knows what they are doing'. I'm sure that there a few tales around about that. The generic (term makes a lot of people quiver, me included) approach can generate just another sheet off the printer. However if, as in a number of cases I have come across, the generic assessment has a section to be completed by the user/worker/operator to make it specific to the job in question this may help the situation. Another possibility to consider is the policy/plan/arrangements. Why repeat an assessment if the situation is recurring? Move on a couple of regs in MHSWR to 'H&S Arrangements'- your generic assessment could be the basis for a method statement/system of work. The requirement for assessment would then hinge mainly around to the specific circumstances of the case. Good luck Jim