Hypothetical situation
you employ an elderly person who is a member of your family, in a family owned business.
Your staff are concerned about the health and safety of this person.
Has any body got a risk assessment for employing an elderly person that I could look at

This is yet another example of everything being down to a riask assessment. That is not what risk assessment is really about, it shows a worrying lack of understanding of the true nature of risk assessment. The employment of the older person is simply about what is he or she capable of doing, are there any issues that prevent him from doing the job. There are many examples of the older person being more than capable of doing something, sometimes the older person is better than the young person simply because they have that element of experience that is al important. The most important thing is what exactly is the older person going to do, I suggest it will not be digging ditches.

Canopener, I understand where you are coming from, but the original post did not say what the older person was going to do, so why is there a need for a risk assessment? Perhaps he is simply going to sit on the front desk or indertake some sort of record keeping activity. It is about horses for courses. To me it smacks of anti older persons by coming up with the dreaded risk assessment ploy to put someone off of employing the older person (which incidentaly is now illegal).

OOps - I meant "you're" not "your" - sorry

Age discrimination and the equality age regulations 2006, comes into play, just because the person is over 65 it doesent mean he or she is over the hill, they probably got more get up and go, and turn up for work on time, and have less sick dasys,

Just to correct Terry556 statement - only schedules 6 and 8 of these regulations are still extant. The remainder have been repealed by the Equality Act 2010.

EU and HSE guidance in this area does require age to be incorporated into risk assessments as a factor to be considered, in common with other diversity areas. You do not however need to treat it as a separate assessment except in the case of the other end of the scale ie Young Persons.

Bob

Where does it say that Bob? Management Regs don't require 'separate' assessment for young persons.

Quote from the Management regulations (regulation 19) regarding young persons 'and in determining whether work will involve harm or risks for the purposes of this paragraph regard shall be had to the results of the assessment'

And from the supporting ACOP:-
'The employer needs to carry out the risk assessment before young workers start work and to see where risk remains, taking account of control measures in place, as described in regulation 3. For young workers, the risk assessment needs to pay attention to areas of risk described in regulation 19(2). For several of these areas the employer will need to assess the risks with the control measures in place under other statutory requirements'

So you agree no requirement for separate assessment for a young person then, Baker30611?

quote=ron hunter]So you agree no requirement for separate assessment for a young person then, Baker30611?

Ron

As Baker306111 quoted

And from the supporting ACOP:-
'The employer needs to carry out the risk assessment before young workers start work and to see where risk remains, taking account of control measures in place, as described in regulation 3. For young workers, the risk assessment needs to pay attention to areas of risk described in regulation 19(2). For several of these areas the employer will need to assess the risks with the control measures in place under other statutory requirements'

The key lies in the characteristics of each young person and "other statutory requirements". We must not be so narrow in our thinking to forget that other legislation applies to young people specifically at work or on work experience. Indeed the latter case requires clear statements for the individual person not a generic one. Standard formats play a part BUT be very careful about generic. The HSE have played this card before and then stated that a RA is not suitable and suficient because it is generic. Remember a good RA includes task, person, environment and tools.

I do however concede that I am talking about BUSINESS RA rather than the narrow concept of H&S alone but we are meant to be adding value to the business if we are doing our job properly.

Bob