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tuutori  
#1 Posted : 06 February 2018 10:09:18(UTC)
Rank: New forum user
tuutori

Hi All,

Appreciate if anyone knows if there are any standards or regulations specifying whether or not the severity can be changed in the risk assessment after controls in place? This triggers every time a debate when reviewing the risk assessment. To my mind this seems to be largely a matter of opinion e.g. working at heights, some say the severity will be reduced when wearing a safety harness others say that you can still die but the probability is significantly lower. This goes on and on and on….

WatsonD  
#2 Posted : 06 February 2018 10:36:55(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
WatsonD

In implementing controls you are either reducing likelihood or severity. PPE. is a good example of reducing severity rather than likelihood (not counting high-vis).

However, it is worth noting that PPE is far down the hierarchy of controls for a reason. It is alway better to redu eliminate the likelihood of an accident, and only where it cannot be eliminated, but the likelihood reduced, then reducing severity becomes priority.

For example, if I ask workers to wear hard hats where there is a risk of objects falling on their head, I am not reducing the likelihood that will happen, but I have reduced the potential severity should is brick fall on them. The better control would be to stop (or reduce) the risk of anything falling from height first.

So, in you example it could be argued that someone wearing a harness would suffer a less severe injury if they were to fall, but I guess the main thing here is not to get too caught up on the numbers in your matrix - as long as your controls are effective.

Hsquared14  
#3 Posted : 06 February 2018 12:56:14(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
Hsquared14

This is a case of mistaken priorities.  The risk rating in the risk assessment has nothing to do with regulatory requirements at all and nothing to do with the purpose of undertaking a risk assessment.  The rating is purely notional to enable you to prioritise the actions to take basically a filter so that you don't put all your resources into fixing a trivial risk whilst ignoring something that can kill people.  People get really hung up on these numbers when what you should be discussing is how do we protect our employees from injury.  For this very reason I don't like number based rating systems because they foster useless debate which actually does nothing to control the risk.  Think logically about the risk and about the controls and let the numbers sort themselves out.  The story is more important than the numbers you assign to it.

thanks 3 users thanked Hsquared14 for this useful post.
A Kurdziel on 06/02/2018(UTC), lorna on 07/02/2018(UTC), andrewcl on 08/02/2018(UTC)
A Kurdziel  
#4 Posted : 06 February 2018 13:08:19(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
A Kurdziel

As Hsquared14 said this business of rating the risk is nothing to do with regulations. It is just tool for people to use to focus their minds on the actual risk assessment process and in particular to prioritise what controls they should be looking at. I have talked to tame HSE inspectors and a lot of them do not like the matrix approach as they feel it detracts from what you need to be doing, which is selecting suitable controls.

WatsonD  
#5 Posted : 06 February 2018 13:42:47(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
WatsonD

Originally Posted by: A Kurdziel Go to Quoted Post

As Hsquared14 said this business of rating the risk is nothing to do with regulations. It is just tool for people to use to focus their minds on the actual risk assessment process and in particular to prioritise what controls they should be looking at. I have talked to tame HSE inspectors and a lot of them do not like the matrix approach as they feel it detracts from what you need to be doing, which is selecting suitable controls.

Personaly I don't think that having a matrix and selecting suitable controls are mutually exclusive. As you say it helps to focus the minds of people for whom H&S isn't their core role to prioritise controls, especially when the RA is collaborative.

Interesting that HSE inspectors do not like this though. Did they offer any preferred alternatives?

A Kurdziel  
#6 Posted : 06 February 2018 14:15:02(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
A Kurdziel

I get the impression that they don’t like the numbers game, where people agonise over whether something is 5 or 4 which means that its ok or not depending on how the numbers stack up. I think they would prefer we go straight to looking at suitable controls and get on with it. One told me that he took Judith Hackett with him on a visit to a factory and she seemed obsessed with the risk assessments and if they were upto date. He said he didn’t’ care: “risk assessments identify issues; controls save lives”

My own bugbear about the matrix is the amber bit (neither RED- needing more work or GREEN-safe as can be). What does amber actually mean? what good is reviewing the risk assessment in 6 months rather than a year do? Worse are those with shades of amber: review every 6 months, every 6 weeks, and every 6 minutes!

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WatsonD on 06/02/2018(UTC)
chris.packham  
#7 Posted : 06 February 2018 14:57:52(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
chris.packham

We do tend to get hung-up on what we mean by risk assessment! For me risk assessment is just the start of the process.

I like the EU OSHA definition:

“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.”

What technique we use is in my view less important provided it is consistent with the aim of the EU OSHA definition. As already stated, it is about ranking risks in some sort of sensible order. The management of risk and how we structure our approach to this is a different topic altogether. Here I think a judgement becomes more complex. Do we prioritise the potential fatality, although the probability is extremely remote over the less severe damage which is much more likely. The former might also require considerable time to complete, during which the other, which could be resolved simply and quickly, could result in numerous injuries. This is where I feel some of the highly procedural systems tend to fall short.

Chris

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A Kurdziel on 06/02/2018(UTC)
WatsonD  
#8 Posted : 06 February 2018 15:54:57(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
WatsonD

Originally Posted by: A Kurdziel Go to Quoted Post

I get the impression that they don’t like the numbers game, where people agonise over whether something is 5 or 4 which means that its ok or not depending on how the numbers stack up. I think they would prefer we go straight to looking at suitable controls and get on with it. One told me that he took Judith Hackett with him on a visit to a factory and she seemed obsessed with the risk assessments and if they were upto date. He said he didn’t’ care: “risk assessments identify issues; controls save lives”

My own bugbear about the matrix is the amber bit (neither RED- needing more work or GREEN-safe as can be). What does amber actually mean? what good is reviewing the risk assessment in 6 months rather than a year do? Worse are those with shades of amber: review every 6 months, every 6 weeks, and every 6 minutes!

Thank you for your response.

“risk assessments identify issues; controls save lives” Which is great soundbite, which clearly identifies the correlation between the two IMHO

I agree not to spend too much time agonising over numbers. For me it is just a quick way of ranking hazards to ensure the biggest risks are dealt with as a priority and that they are clearly defined for the end-user, for whom a more visual aid is often preferred.

As for the colours for me they can be red or amber prior to controls being identified but only green would be acceptable afterwards. That way I can be sure that it isn't signed off until I know the controls are effective.

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