Step 4: Record your findings and implement them

Putting the results of your risk assessment into practice will make a difference when looking after people and your business.

Writing down the results of your risk assessment, and sharing them with your staff, encourages you to do this. If you have fewer than five employees you do not have to write anything down.

When writing down your results, keep it simple, for example ‘Tripping over rubbish: bins provided, staff instructed, weekly housekeeping checks’, or ‘Fume from welding: local exhaust ventilation used and regularly checked’.

We do not expect a risk assessment to be perfect, but it must be suitable and sufficient. As illustrated by our example risk assessments, you need to be able to show that:

• a proper check was made;
• you asked who might be affected;
• you dealt with all the obvious significant hazards, taking into account the number of people who could be involved;
• the precautions are reasonable, and the remaining risk is low; and
• you involved your staff or their representatives in the process.

Download the Risk Assessment and Policy Template. This template brings together your risk assessment, health and safety policy and record of health and safety arrangements into one document to help get you started and save you time. If you already have a health and safety policy, you may choose to simply complete the risk assessment part of the template. Use the example risk assessments as a guide for completing the template, adapting it for your own workplace.  

If, like many businesses, you find that there are quite a lot of improvements that you could make, big and small, don’t try to do everything at once. Make a plan of action to deal with the most important things first. Health and safety inspectors acknowledge the efforts of businesses that are clearly trying to make improvements.
A good plan of action often includes a mixture of different things such as:

• a few cheap or easy improvements that can be done quickly, perhaps as a temporary solution until more reliable controls are in place;
• long-term solutions to those risks most likely to cause accidents or ill health;
• long-term solutions to those risks with the worst potential consequences;
• arrangements for training employees on the main risks that remain and how they are to be controlled;
• regular checks to make sure that the control measures stay in place; and
• clear responsibilities – who will lead on what action and by when.

Remember, prioritise and tackle the most important things first. As you complete each action, tick it off your plan.

Step 5: Review your assessment and update if necessary