Risk management is a process of identifying and addressing safety hazards that can result in illness or injury to workers. This is an important part of ensuring the health and safety of people in any industry.
In the healthcare industry, it’s even more critical that risks be managed well. This is because small errors can lead to significant injuries, fatalities and cost providers more money.
Risk Assessment
Risk assessment is the process of identifying and categorising hazards in your workplace. It enables you to put in place control measures that will reduce the likelihood of accidents and ill health occurring.
In many cases it is the responsibility of the employer to carry out the risk assessments at work or to appoint someone with the necessary knowledge, experience and skills to do so.
A risk assessment should be as systematic and thorough as possible, looking at what happens in real workplaces. This should involve observing people in their everyday tasks and talking to them about any hazards that they have noticed.
Hazards can include chemical substances, physical hazards like broken stair rails or frayed electrical cords, biological or infectious agents, or environmental factors such as elevated noise levels and unventilated spaces. It is best to identify all these hazards and their associated risks before changing operations, workstations, or workflow; making major organizational changes; or introducing new equipment, materials, or processes.
Risk Mitigation
Risk mitigation is the process of identifying and minimizing the potential effects of threats in the workplace. It is an important part of occupational safety and health (OSH) management that focuses on ensuring employees are safe in the workplace.
In health and safety, a risk assessment is the first step in a comprehensive plan for risk management. It outlines the hazards and risks faced by the company, and different practices employees can follow to minimize them.
It also outlines how the company can prevent accidents and injuries from occurring. This helps the company comply with government laws and regulations that require employers to keep their workplaces safe.
A risk analysis should be conducted on a regular basis, evaluating the level of risks that the business faces and assessing how to eliminate, control or mitigate them. A risk that has been assessed as intolerable must be eliminated immediately, while one that has been assessed in the tolerable region can be reduced if the company implements appropriate measures.
Risk Control
Risk control measures are actions taken by employers to reduce or eliminate risks in the workplace. They can include things like the use of PPE, engineering changes or administrative controls.
It is a basic legal requirement of modern health and safety regulations that all employers take steps to reduce risk in their workplaces.
To begin, identify the risks that need to be addressed. This means noting all the hazards, how people might be harmed and what you have in place to control them.
You can do this in a number of ways, from desk-based risk assessment to ongoing risk identification where you ask employees about their work processes.
Once you’ve identified a range of risks, prioritize them according to their level of materialization (impact and velocity). The hazards that have higher materialization scores deserve your attention. They can then be put into a risk matrix and reduced with risk mitigation or controls.
Risk Monitoring
Risk monitoring is a vital part of the health and safety process. It enables organisations to check whether their risk management strategies are effective and whether new risks can be identified.
Risk management is a legal duty under the EU legislation, and is not only good for business but also helps to avoid work-related accidents and health problems. It also reduces work-related expenses and improves productivity.
It involves identifying hazards, assessing their severity, and then controlling them up to a level that is acceptable. This can involve proactive identification, incident reporting, safety inspections, risk audits, safe design and purchasing, and consultation.
It also involves reviewing and updating risk control measures when the workplace changes significantly. This can include the introduction of new equipment, machines or substances and/or changes in internal processes.