Hello there,

I am new to health and safety management and currently working in an industry where our work environment is dynamic and changes frequently. We deal; with a combination of routine tasks as well as unexpected scenarios; and I am looking for advice on how to create and implement effective risk assessments in such a setting.

While we have standard procedures in place for routine tasks, we often encounter new and unforeseen risks. What are some good practices for staying ahead of these; and how can; I ensure that I am identifying risks in a proactive manner?

I know that involving employees in the risk assessment process is key; but in our fast paced environment; it can be difficult to ensure that everyone participates meaningfully. How do you; encourage active involvement and engagement from the workforce; particularly when time is limited?

In a dynamic environment, things change rapidly; and I feel like our risk assessments can quickly become outdated. What are some efficient ways to ensure that risk assessments; stay relevant and are updated regularly without causing disruptions?

Also, I have gone through this post; https://forum.iosh.co.uk/posts/t128017-Dynamic-Risk-assessments-what-is-the-legal-power-apps-point which definitely helped me out a lot.

I am really interested in hearing; about practical strategies or tools that have worked well for others in similar environments.

Thanks in advance for your help and assistance.

NovaLindgren REPORTED for link behind www

Dynamic risk assessments are a myth. No one has ever given me an example of a "every changing, never seen that before, no two jobs are the same" occupation. If that were true not only could you never have a RAMS you could also never be able to plan or cost any job. How would you know how many people you would need, what equipment, how long would it take? And you want to add to that every job then changes as soon as you start, with all these totally unseen, once in a life time risks never seen before.

Unless you are sending people on a five year space mission to seek out new planets, new solar systems and alien life ditch the dynamic risk assessments and stop expecting your employees to do the RAMS for you.   

Originally Posted by: O'Donnell54548

Dynamic risk assessments are a myth. No one has ever given me an example of a "every changing, never seen that before, no two jobs are the same" occupation.  

I would repeat the fire service example given. DRA along with a Safe Person Concept (training the person rather than making the environment safe) is the cornerstone of fireground H&S  

Consider two similar activities

1) Crane operations: the pre planning, RAMS, and lifting plans to get a mobile crane to work. It takes hours of planning. Even unexpected or dynamic lifts - say after an industrial accident or train crash etc - take a very long time as the systems have to be developed on the hoof

2) Then compare that with getting a hydraulic platform to work at a fire scene where there is a need for a rescue. There is no warning of that activity and no time to work through RAMS when the fire appliance arrives on site.  It all relies on the competency of the operator and those around him/her to apply DRA principles 

So DRA is not a myth - its just not understood by some 

Organisations  that routinely use DRA have had their knuckles  raped by the HSE including the fire service. Often organisations simply hand over the responsibility for risk assessment to the guys on the ground and leave it at that.  O'Donnell54548 is essentially right you very rarely need a DRA as you should be looking at all risks before a starting any activity.  Of course you might come actresses a situation where the agreed risk assessment is not suitable and that is when you need a more dynamic approach.  This is about empowering you staff. I was a bit concerned by O'Donnell54548’s  “stop expecting your employees to do the RAMS for you.” line. This implies that all risk assessment should be created by some remote “expert” and the frontline people simply follow what they have been told. To be effective the risk assessment needs to be “owned” by the users and they must be expected to contribute to the process. That is where messey’s comments come in about having trained and empowered staff. That means if your staff find themselves in a situation where the exist risk assessment is insufficient they should have enough understanding to make a decision about what to do next, including deciding not to do that job.  They should also be allowed to modify the existing process but with the understanding that they record this and that this is treated as a learning opportunity. It should be fed back into the existing risk assessment so that when this situation occurs again there is no longer a need for anything dynamic or ion the hoof.  

The issues begin when DRA is used all of the time for any situation.     

and now aatmunn drops their web page on us to advertise the services of a US company

The fire services have close down meetings after every event, which enables them to build up a portfolio of any new risks encountered at a particular event. A house fire is a house fire, a car fire is a car fire (already reviewing in the event of electric cars) etc. To suggest that every fire is a unique one off is ridiculous. 

As for having the employees complete the assessment, the duty is to consult, NOT to delegate.  

Oh dear it seems that we have opened up a can of worms here!

The Management of Health and Safety at Work regulations  make it quite clear that the responsibility for  ensuring that  a suitable and sufficient risk assessment is done rest with the “employer”. But the employer is not a a real person; it refers to organisation and an organisation can no more “do” a risk assessment than it can get married and raise a family! So somebody has to do the actual risk assessing but who?

HSG 65 says “A risk assessment should be completed by someone with a knowledge of the activity, process or material that is being assessed. Workers and their safety representatives are a valuable source of information.

If an adviser or consultant assists with the risk assessment, managers and workers should still be involved.”

If the business is something like the Malton Bacon Factory, then you would hope that a manager will understand the what the process is (pig in one end bacon out the other) and be able to put together a risk assessment but what happens in an organisation which carries out multiple different processes? One part they are handling toxic chemicals, another they are working with  highly infectious materials. There might be lasers and x-rays. What about people working in the field in remote locations? Where can you find someone with the “a knowledge of the activity, process or material that is being assessed” if the activities are very diverse? You can try for for a generic approach. I have come across H&S consultants that  claim that they can write a risk assessment for any activity. This always ends up with something generic which does not deal with the risks to a particular worker in a particular job and as such it is not “suitable and sufficient”.

My attitude has always been that the  the best person to lead on managing the risk should be the person doing the job as they have the knowledge of what the job actually involves. Of course you give them training and monitor what they are doing but the ownership rests with them. If you don’t you can’t just issue them with a set of RAMS and say “this is they way that we want you to do this job” unless you are able to  closely supervise them. Perhaps you can do that in the Malton Bacon factory  but in many organisations that’s just not possible.

This is why I usually advocate that risk assessment is done by a team, who between them have all the required knowledge.

Sometimes it will be the case that variations need to be considered in the field, in which case it's useful to get the story of the variation and what can be learned from it, whether it be that we'll do this again, or that we won't do this again and we'll do that instead.  It's both impossible and undesirable to prevent anyone ever using their initiative to solve a problem.

I have regularly come across situations when the manager says this is how we do this and here is the risk assessment and when I ask the people doing the job they say they cannot follow the “Official” risk assessment ‘cos “nobody’s done it like that for years”.  The issue is good communications and people who listen to what is going on rather than just follow the company line.  So if someone says in their risk assessment that we need X and Y to be safe someone needs to pick that up. A lot of managers will happily sign off a risk assessment knowing full well that the higher up’s will not be willing to provide the necessary resources. A lot of people see the risk assessment as a magic charm rather than a working process. How high up should they go, work supervisors, middle managers, CEO or perhaps the chair of board, cos they will of course have to find the money.   

 I think overall we are hung up about risk assessment and SOP. As far as I am concerned, they are just one slice of cheese in James Reason’s model. Competence, culture and organisation are  just as important.

And finally… although law stays that you need to carry out a “suitable and sufficient” risk assessment nobody has ever been prosecuted just for having a rubbish risk assessment. The only prosecutions under regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work regulations are those where a risk assessment is found wanting in  hindsight, after accident.