Risk assessment training

Five steps to risk assessment...

Step five: monitor and review

The last consideration is monitoring and review of your risk assessment. The final step in the 'five steps' process, never really ends as monitoring and review of your risk assessment to make sure it stays valid is an ongoing process. The ultimate aim of risk assessment is to implement measures to remove or reduce the risks. Monitoring and review of circumstances must occur to see whether the measures implemented have reduced risks effectively and whether more needs to be done.

You'll need to check your risk assessment for certain hazards that require regular monitoring to keep the risks low - for example keeping walkways and fire exits clear, monitoring cooling towers for Legionella bacteria, or checking that staff are wearing correct items of personal protective equipment (PPE).

When to review
Things very rarely stay entirely constant in the workplace, so the assessment needs to take into account any change in the risks arising in the workplace. Review may be necessary if the following circumstances arise:

• When new members of staff are taken on
  You will need to re-consider who could be at risk and how they might be harmed if your staffing arrangements change. Remember that new members of staff are more vulnerable to harm as they are less familiar with their work and environment.



• If new machinery or equipment is introduced
  This may bring new hazards into the workplace which need to be considered. Even if only minor adjustments need to be made, they are important as it keeps the risk assessment up to date as the changes happen.



• If an accident or a near miss occurs
  It's important to find out why an incident has occurred and recognise that existing risk controls aren't adequate. Reviewing your risk assessment in these circumstances will help you decide what needs to be done to prevent future incidents.

Regular review
It's also a good idea to decide on a regular pattern of review at the time of the initial assessment. How regularly would depend on whether the workplace was a low or high risk environment, and how frequently changes occur. A good general rule of thumb is to review annually.