Risk Assessment
Risk Assessment
Under the Health and Safety at Work Act of 1974 employers have a responsibility to provide a safe working environment for their employees. Under the Act employees also have a responsibility to ensure that their actions do not endanger others. Central to making the working environment a safer place is the process of Risk Assessment. Thus any proposed activity must be assessed from the point of view of the safety risks associated with it. In the light of this assessment the activity may have to be modified to eliminate the risks or to reduce them to acceptable levels.
Managers and principal investigators are responsible for ensuring that risk assessments are actually done, effective controls are established for the work and they are recorded, regularly monitored and reviewed where needed.
Risk assessments must be carried out by competent persons and done before work starts.
More advice on how to complete a COSHH/Risk Assessment is given on the SEPS webpage.
To carry out your risk assessment you should first download a COSHH (Control of Substances Hazardous to Health) and Risk Assessment form. There are different forms of Risk Assessments to be used depending on the procedure you are going to start.
Laboratory COSHH and Risk Assessment
Field Work Risk Assessment
In IBAHCM one of the main areas of activity is Fieldwork and risk assessments have to be carried out for fieldwork as for all other activities within the Institute. Appropriate documentation must be completed as part of the risk assessment. This, in the case of an undergraduate course, might simply involve a general statement on safety in the Course Information Document or the Laboratory Manual. All staff carying out Field Work must complete a Field Work Risk Assesment. For postgraduates an Application to Pursue Research Furth of Glasgow Research Furth Safety Checklist must be completed together with the Field Work Risk Assessment.
A specific course to give guidance and outline risk assessment procedures for field work is run each session, all staff and students must attend this course before commencing any field work. Course attendance will also be necessary before any named individual will be added to the list of those insured for fieldwork.
Guidance Notes for Field Work Risk Assessment
1. Read through the Research Furth Safety Checklist, ticking off as you go the boxes pertinent to your field experiments.
2. Complete the Field Trip Record using the boxes you ticked on the checklist as a guide to the information needed in more detail.
3. Both supervisor and worker must sign the form once they are satisfied sufficient training has been undertaken.
4. The form is now completed and should be sent to Chief Technician (Room 201, Graham Kerr Building) along with a copy of the Research Furth of Glasgow application.
5. Lone workers should complete the Lone Worker Form and this has to be signed by the Director of Institute.