A takeaway kitchen has a fryer full of oil at 180 degrees, a floor that gets slippery, and a new cook who started on Monday. Before anyone is hurt, somebody is supposed to sit down and think it through, in a set order, and write the thinking down. That piece of thinking has a name: a risk assessment.
Find the hazards→Who, and how→Weigh and decide→Write it down→Look again
Britain's safety body gives it five steps. Find the hazards. Decide who might be harmed, and how. Weigh each risk and decide what to do about it. Write down what you found. Look at it again when something changes, or when time has passed.
Find the hazards
vsvs
Write it down
vsvs
Decide what to do
Which step comes first?
Find the hazards.
Right. Everything else is about the hazards, so finding them has to come first. The step is a walk round with your eyes open, not a form.
Write it down.
Not yet. Writing is the fourth step. You write down what you found and what you decided, and neither exists yet.
Decide what to do.
Not yet. Deciding before finding means you fix the hazards you already knew about and miss the ones you did not. The walk round comes first.
The cook
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The rider waiting
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The cleaner at midnight
The same kitchen, three different risks.
Who might be harmed is not always who you expect. Not only the cook: the delivery rider waiting by the fryer, the cleaner who comes at midnight, a visitor who does not know the floor is wet. New workers, young workers, pregnant workers and people with a disability can be at more risk from the same hazard.
Move the control to change who is in the kitchen. The floor is the same. The score is lesson two's: how likely, 1 to 3, times how bad, 1 to 3. Made-up round numbers.
This person's risk from the floor2 out of 9
The highest score9 out of 9
A trained cookA trained cook: knows the floor, and help is near. Likely 1, bad 2, so the same floor scores 2 out of 9 for this person.
This person's risk from the floor4 out of 9
The highest score9 out of 9
A cook in their first weekA cook in their first week: does not yet know where it gets wet. Likely 2, bad 2, so the same floor scores 4 out of 9 for this person.
This person's risk from the floor6 out of 9
The highest score9 out of 9
A visitor who does not know the kitchenA visitor who does not know the kitchen: has never seen the floor at all. Likely 3, bad 2, so the same floor scores 6 out of 9 for this person.
This person's risk from the floor6 out of 9
The highest score9 out of 9
A cleaner working alone at nightA cleaner working alone at night: knows the floor, but a fall nobody sees is a fall nobody helps with. Likely 2, bad 3, so the same floor scores 6 out of 9 for this person.
Why does the cleaner working alone at night score as high as the visitor, when the cleaner knows the floor?
Being alone makes the harm worse. A fall nobody sees is a fall nobody helps with, so how bad goes up.
Right. The cleaner's chance of slipping is lower than the visitor's. But a broken ankle at midnight with nobody there is a worse harm than the same ankle at noon, and the score counts both questions.
Because cleaners are clumsier than visitors.
Not yet. The score does not rate people. It rates the situation: how likely, and how bad. Working alone changed how bad, not how clumsy.
It is a mistake. Knowing the floor should make the cleaner's score the lowest.
Not yet. Knowing the floor lowers how likely, and the score shows that: 2, not 3. It is the second question, how bad, that lifts the cleaner back up.
Move the control.
Put the five steps of a risk assessment in order.
Tap them in order, first to last.
Find the hazards→Who, and how→Weigh and decide→Write it down→Look again
Right. Finding comes before deciding, and writing comes after deciding: you write down what you chose, not what you were still thinking. Looking again is last because it never ends.
Written downfive or more workers
↓→
Shown to the new cook
↓→
Read again when things change
In Britain, an employer with five or more workers must write the important findings down. The sheet is not the point; the thinking is. But the sheet is what proves the thinking happened. It is what the new cook is shown on Monday, and what gets read again when the fryer is replaced.
New fryerbigger
↓→
The assessmentfrom January
↓→
Now what?
The kitchen replaces its fryer with a bigger one. What does the five-step rule ask for?
Only step four: cross out the old fryer's name and write the new one.
Not yet. That changes the paper and not the thinking. The question is whether the new fryer brings a new risk, and the paper cannot answer it.
Nothing. The assessment was done in January.
Not yet. January's assessment was about January's fryer. The thinking does not carry over to a machine nobody had seen yet.
Look at the assessment again. A new machine may have brought a new hazard with it.
Right. A bigger fryer holds more oil, may sit differently, may need a different lift to empty. The fifth step exists for exactly this moment.
The shop
↓→
A ladder with a rail
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Who climbs it?
A shop did steps one and three. It listed its hazards and bought a ladder with a rail. It skipped asking who might be harmed. What kind of thing does it miss?
Nothing. A good ladder protects whoever climbs it.
Not yet. It protects the climber. It does nothing for a young worker the law says should not climb, or for a customer under it, and only step two would have named them.
The cost of the ladder.
Not yet. Cost is weighed in step three, and the shop did that step. What it skipped was the people, and a ladder has no opinion about who is on it.
The people a good ladder does not cover: the sixteen-year-old weekend worker who should not be sent up it, and the customer walking underneath.
Right. A rail helps whoever is on the ladder. Step two is what finds the person who should not be on it at all, and the person below who never thought about it.
Lesson complete
A risk assessment finds the hazards, asks who could be hurt, decides, writes it down, and looks again.