Hi, Can anyone offer me any advice? Is there any specific social care legislation stating that risk assessments need to be carried out aside from the general legal requirements? Any advice greatly recieved. Jay

Jay As Bob states there is a raft of other legislation and guidance that needs to be taken into account - such as Care Standards. There are numerous types of 'risk assessments' that the care sector may use such as: clients care plans; assessing the risk of a child remaining at home with parents; assessing whether a patient with mental health issues can go back into the community etc. These are obviously very different to the 'general' risk assessments that I believe you are alluding to and are generally carried out by 'committee' with the involvement of various agencies. As a H & S adviser within a Social Care environment I am generally only involved where the assessment may impact directly on employees (eg moving and assistance with a client; threatening behaviour by client towards employee etc) but I always stress to staff that the principles of risk assessment are the same no matter who is carrying it out or what 'format' it is presented in. Risk assessment is not the preserve of 'heath and safety' and should never be viewed as such. The link below may be of some use Regards FH http://www.cqc.org.uk/