Step 5: Review your risk assessment and update if necessary
Nothing stays the same for ever. By talking to your staff and monitoring incident rates and control measures, you will be able to judge whether your control measures are effective. Managers and staff must be given responsibility to oversee the process and develop reporting procedures, discussing and helping to implement solutions, as well as monitoring the solutions for effectiveness.
Your risk assessment should be reviewed regularly to ensure that the risk of staff being harmed by work-related violence has not changed and that no further control measures are needed. It should also be reviewed if any changes occur in your business that may increase the risk of violence, eg lone working, business changes in the nature of the work you do.
There is no legal time frame for when you should review your risk assessment. It is at your discretion to decide when a review is deemed necessary, but the risk assessment is a working document and, as your business experiences change, this information should be recorded and updated. As a guide, it is recommended that risk assessments be reviewed on an annual basis.
Monitor and review
- Check that your control measures are working.
- Review your assessment in case things have changed and record the significant findings with your risk assessment documents.
You have now completed your risk assessment for work-related violence.
