Risk Assessment Services for UK Employers

A general workplace assessment is the starting point, but specific hazards need their own assessment: substances, manual handling, screens, fire, work equipment, and increasingly work-related stress under the HSE Management Standards.

Certain groups also need individual assessments by law, including new and expectant mothers, young workers, and lone workers.

It identifies the significant hazards rather than every conceivable one, records who might be harmed and how, evaluates existing controls honestly, and sets out further action with a named owner and a date. It reflects the way work is really done, not the way the procedure says it should be.

It also has a review date and evidence that the review happened. Assessments should be revisited annually, and immediately after an incident, a change in process, new equipment or a change in the people doing the work.

A template is a useful structure and a poor assessment. Searching for a risk assessment template is the right instinct, but the document only becomes compliant once someone competent has walked the job, talked to the people doing it and written down what is actually controlled.

We give clients our templates to use for routine, low-risk tasks and reassessments, and write the significant ones ourselves. That combination is usually the most cost-effective approach.