In my previous post, I’ve already established that risk assessments are part of our everyday lives. Today’s thoughts are on why we sometimes need written assessments instead of a purely mental ones. The answer is quite straightforward – it is due to the level of risk posed by a situation/action and also how many other people are involved.
If, for example, you were teaching some students to cook, it would be a good idea to write a risk assessment. This is because if someone was to be injured because of a negligent action or instruction you gave, you could be liable for any costs that the injured party incurs. You are also leaving yourself open to being pursued legally for negligence.
Taking the example of cooking that I spoke about in my last post, let’s assume that an injury was caused by burning. If it can be shown that you had already considered the risks of getting burnt as quite high but that you had already put sufficient strategies in place to prevent it occurring (in this example by providing oven gloves and reminding the students to use them), it is likely to be considered that you had done everything you can to mitigate the risk, and the accident was caused by the student. This would mean that you are not financially liable for any costs incurred by the student.
A written risk assessment shows that you have thought about the risks a particular set of actions or environments may occur. Tt also shows that where you consider the risks to be high or very high, that you have planned to reduce the risks by taking certain actions or using certain strategies. The resulting written assessment shows that what was considered a high risk has now been used reduced to a much lower and more acceptable level of risk, and if you were pursued legally it would show that you had considered all of the risks.
In my next post, I’ll talk about assessing the levels of risk for a particular event or activity.
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