Slippery surface due to snow / ice?

It doesn't really matter and everyone will disagree. What really matters is the control measures you'll be putting in place. Spending a lot of time musing over the exact definition of the hazard is not the most productive use of your time, spend the time wiesly developing and communicating the control measures.

Sorry Jake was typing while you were posting!

You guys are the best :)
Thanks!
Thought I was going crazy but at least I know now it's not as a result of this!

IMO 'the team' also need some training on Risk Assessment to ensure an understanding of hazard and risk.

Jane

When giving guidance and training about risk management I've always described hazard as a situation or condition with the POTENTIAL to cause harm. As regards compacted snow and ice - and also slushy snow and ice, they can pose a hazard to anyone while walking, running, cycling, driving, etc over them because traction or grip with them is reduced by their slippery or slushy nature. After identifying a hazard, the next stage is to consider whether it poses a significant RISK to anyone, i.e. a combination of i) the likelihood of harm occurring and ii) how serious the likely harm would be. If a significant risk is identified, the next step is to identify and implement ways of preventing or minimising the risk/s.

Therefore, in the case of a school playground covered with hard ice for example, it would be appropriate for the school management to ensure that necessary access routes across it were kept salted and gritted and to keep pupils and adult supervisors indoors and thus off the playground during break times. As for organisations with employees who have to negotiate icy surfaces in the course of their work, providing them with gripper devices for their footwear would be a sensible, simple precautionary measure to minimise the likelihood of them slipping and being at foreseeable risk of nasty injuries to wrists and arms, etc.

Using a non-winter analogy, people would generally agree that a tiger is a hazard in view of its natural propensity to attack people especially if cornered/surprised. Though potentially hazardous to people, a tiger on an uninhabited desert island obviously poses no risk to anyone. However, if it's in a zoo, there's a very high likelihood that it would attack visitors and zoo staff, so the obvious risk control measure is to keep it totally segregated in an enclosure. If it needs hands-on attention by a vet, then it would need to be fully sedated in order to protect the vet and anyone else going near it.

Jane

If you use the bleach bottle analogy during training I bet most people wince when they hear you say creche. However, if there are no children in or likely to enter your hypothetical creche when the open bottle is placed on its floor, then there is relatively little risk from its contents. As a related aside, I understand that, sadly, some parents are oblivious about the corrosive nature of dishwasher powders containing sodium hydroxide (alias caustic soda) and thus think there's no risk in allowing their children, including toddlers, to help load dishwashers with such products.

Also your analogy reminds me that during risk assessment training sessions for headteachers, school governors, etc., I usually employed several items to stimulate discussions. These included an empty bleach bottle and also some asbestos insulation material sealed in a plastic bag inside a suitably labelled and sealed transparent plastic container. I would briefly describe why the asbestos was a class 1 carcinogen and then give the container to be passed round among the trainees. As it went round I would ask the trainees if this was putting them at risk. The response was always 'no' on the basis that I'd explained what the stuff was, and that it was totally sealed. I would add that I'd already assessed them as being intelligent sensible adults and was also keeping an eye on where the container was. My next question was to ask if it would be appropriate to leave the same container (whether labelled or unlabelled) in a classroom occupied by unsupervised pupils. Thankfully, the response from trainees to this was always an emphatic 'no'. The trainees invariably offered good reasons for this including the innate curiosity of young people, their lack of knowledge about things like asbestos and limited sense of danger.

Oh I just knew my auntie Claire would be contributing to this one ....Still loving her work!

Nice one Clairel - my thoughts entirely. I despair.

Jane, I suggest that all three examples are hazards - just different manifestations. It is a bit like saying is a shark a hazard, its bite or its teeth. Who cares, just don't go swimming in shark infested waters!

Graham
Steering away a little from the original posting I thought youngsters were to be allowed to find out what hurt and what didn't, so by ' to keep pupils and adult supervisors indoors' is surely going against the grain? 30 years ago or more it was not uncommon for mostly the boys to create a slide (under supervision) across the playground. Yes bruises were sometimes earned but never a real physical injury.

Badger

So, put the necessary control measures in place!

zimmy perhaps from the car's point of view the listed items are merely a control measure to prevent pheasant strike?

No, what I was saying was that the risk assessment will tell you where you need to take action to eliminate or reduce the risk. Without the risk assessment how would you know whether such action is needed? Once your control measures have been introduced then with chemicals you will need to repeat the risk assessment to ensure that you have achieved adequate control. A problem with chemicals is that there is often no clear level at which exposure becomes harmless or beneficial as opposed to harmful.

let us not forget these forums are for people who may not have any H&S experience - I usualy respect ClaireL's posts - not today :(

I find this get confused all too often on IOSH MS courses and think the IOSH approach is a good one for explanation, I am also amazed how many people moan at me in courses as they apparently know more than a young whipper snapper like me about safety... but still can't define the absolute basics in a risk assessment!

So it's not a stupid question - it's absolutely fundamental to everything we do!

The HAZARD as already outlined is the thing with the potential to cause harm (and this can be a hazardous event) - HOWEVER the bleach example above is a bad one - the example above describes risk - not the hazard. The bleach be it in a sealed bottle in a locked cabinet or open bottle on the floor is still a hazard.

IOSH then use the term hazardous event - this is the interaction with the hazard that results in harm, so this is drinking the bleach (I am amazed in NEBOSH cert projects how many people put drinking bleach as a :)

Likelihood and consequence then determine risk - but that's another thread :)


Jake gave an excellent answer at post 2... thread done IMHO :)

As for the discussion about control measures 100% agree with Chris - we need to understand and consider the hazard to best control it, this is the point of a good risk assessment. Just banning stuff or throwing PPE at the problem is not good risk control!


Now to finish - again at post 2, very sensible advice - does it matter in reality how we define stuff? NO - what matters is the controls we put into place!

Thanks everyone for the replies and comments. As a first time user of the forum, one or two posts on here shocked me.... Not sure where I posted that I didn't understand what a hazard is, nor how to complete a risk assessment? Conclusions jumped to regarding 'the team'... actually they are a group of non H&S staff planning ahead and all came up with a valid argument. My post was merely to glean how others saw the situation.
Might be good to ask yourself this before posting "what is the positive intent of my comment"? If you have nothing constructive or supportive to say - then jumping to conclusions and being sarcastic certainly doesn't feel professional.
Thanks all for the comments and advice.

Dear Jane,

I shall endeavor to respond to your posts if I think I can help. For the record, there is NO such thing as a daft question in H&S. Ask away.

For me, a 'sorry' to you for seeming flippant

Rob