Hi Sally, I have a daughter with severe learning difficulties and she attends a respite centre, i will see what i can find out for you. From my experience of these facilities and the complex needs of the individuals, there are a few things to be considered, firstly you would need to assess who will be sharing the facility at the same time as some one who is able bodied but has learning difficulties may not be suitable to be there at the same time as perhaps someone with cerebral palsy, i know they look at this as the may not be in a position to protect themselves should some one have a tantrum etc each person will need an individual risk assessment as each will have certain traits or habits that you need to be aware of in order to put in controls, staffing levels will also need to be assessed depending on the behaviours and levels of care required. Some people need one to one care and others require little supervision. I would discuss with someone from the families what you should be aware off as family normal know every detail you will require to carry out a thorough risk assessment, if i get a chance to ask the centre for blank template i will do so and forward it to you. Good luck. Peter

There is a bit more to this. In the care sector, the term "risk assessment" is often used to mean "needs assessment / care plan" which are personal, specific and deal with the care tactics for the individual and their environment (their own home, respite, centres etc). Quite different to the RA for work activities. This can cause confusion; individual care plans should rarely be anything to do with the H&S adviser, as it is the medical and social care experts who put these together, from a 'needs assessment'. This is totally different from staff H&S issues, and risk assessment thereof, although there may be some overlap (eg moving & handling). The last LA I worked with had their own "care risk assessment" courses, which I looked into out of curiosity. Unfortunately they had managed to mangle the good principles of a needs assessment & care plan into the not-so-good '5 steps' (HSE) and classic RA form (hazard, who is affected, etc) resulting in a jumbled duplicated mess. The care plan (whatever it gets called) is the critical outcome document needed, aimed at protecting the health, safety, wellbeing and dignity of individuals. Ask around in the sector for examples or templates for these, and you may get a better idea although I'm surprised your managers haven't been using something like this already. Maybe they have, but think they also need a 'risk assessment' too? (as above). Try terminology test. What I also discovered was that the only 'RAs' to be found in the large social services department were really all these individual care plans. No H&S risk assessment existed for staff, or activities where the two overlapped. That is where the H&S adviser can direct their attention - PUWER, LOLER especially.