Welding is the task. The hazards are those you describe arising out of the task. A hazard is something where the intrinsic properties can result in damage to health. The risk assessment establishes whether there is a need to take action to prevent this occurring. In the words of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work: “A risk assessment is nothing more than a careful examination of what, in your work, could cause harm to people, so that you can weigh up whether you have taken enough precautions or should do more to prevent harm.” – Taken from: “Good Practice Information Provided by EU-OSHA”, September 2009. I do get concerned when health and safety practitioners get bogged down in the minutiae of risk assessment and tend to overlook the fact so clearly put in the above definition that the aim is to prevent harm. The risk assessment only tells us if we need to take action. It is the action that is the important aspect. Does it really matter whether we take welding as the title of our risk assessment (and the presumably divide this into the different hazards that arise from the operations described) or break this down into different ‘risk assessments’, provided that at the end of the day we have adequate controls in place to prevent harm? On this basis I take the view that whatever works for you to achieve this aim is acceptable. It is the risk management that we need to ensure we have correct. (Chris now puts his flack jacket and helmet on and disappears into his hole in the ground!)

I think we may be confusing Phil just a bit by not mentioning the definition of the word "risk" which is a combination of the harm which could be caused by the hazard and the likelihood of that harm actually occurring. Thus for a task based Risk Assessment, welding, the hazards; light, heat, fumes etc, would be identified and an assessment of the level of possible harm and the likelihood of that harm arising from each hazard would then be made. The result would then be used in identifying control measures and the priorities of implementation Sunday morning and me brain hurts already Merv

Martin There is no legal requirement to remove all risks, even the HSE preach that removing all risk is neither practicable or desirable. It has been established that a minor accident can have catastrophic consequences and a catastrophic accident can have minor consequences. People are cancelling trips and events because they cannot be bothered with all the hassle of managing it properly i.e. safely - so it's easier to cancel it and blame health and safety. Where an anomaly exists is between the civil and criminal law doctrines. A personal injury lawyer will ask for a risk assessment by default and whatever the activity. If one has been completed then they will argue that the risk has not been correctly identified or managed. It's a no win situation. Criminal law is far more sensible and as a rule only those cases which have fallen below the legal standard which can be expected are prosecuted and rightly so. Notwithstanding the majority of cases where a serious workplace injury has taken place the duty holder has not been prosecuted.

That is a sound bite. It reads well but it's application is entirely open to interpretation and would differ for everyone. I could lump all my task specific risk assessments into one document and call it one risk assessment but for me it would start an administrative nightmare. Just imagine if one task changed.

I currently use the task specific Risk Assessment approach, our work involves simple repair and maintenance work and so for us this works well. I have in the past broken RA's in to separate items, however you have an endless supply of RA's that people use interest in and so become ineffective. The workforce who use these task specific assessment say that they are much more user friendly and detail the most important controls, with the others covered by the training that they receive. Regards PaulR