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It’s a practical necessity to keep your hospital, clinic orother premises a safe and healthy place for your most valuableasset – your people!

When you got out of bed this morning, did you think about the stepsyou needed to take to make breakfast? When you got into the car,did you consider the dangers of reversing out of your drive? Ashuman beings, we are all risk assessing intuitively, one way oranother, pretty much all of the time.

It’s really not difficult to do, although obviously in thehealthcare environment there are some issues where you’llneed expert advice. However, it’s definitely not somethingyou or your staff should shy away from. You should be encouragingyour staff to actively risk assess for themselves, and I’llpoint out how you can do this in a minute.

Let me deal with a few myths first. Risk assessment is not aboutdrowning you in paperwork and it’s not about preventingpeople having fun. Done properly, a risk assessment is a criticaltool for any organisation to understand the hazards its peopleface, and how to minimise the risk of them being hurt. Soit’s surely something that’s worth spending a goodamount of time on.

Formal risk assessments
Formal risk assessments are required as part of the Management ofHealth and Safety at Work Regulations (1999) but risk assessmentshould be an integral part of healthcare and a way of making surethat patients are provided with a safe service and it also formsthe basis of clinical governance. At an organisational level, riskscan be controlled by referring to guidance such as the CoreControls Assurance Standards in England and the new Standards forBetter Health.

According to the Community Practitioners and Health VisitorsAssociation a risk management strategy should not only cover allaspects of patient safety including infection prevention andcontrol but also systems to learn from complaints, minimisenegligence claims and report and investigate incidents.

It may not be possible to eliminate all risks but the aim of riskassessment is to be proactive in reducing risks to the lowest levelthat is “reasonably practicable”.

In practice, every ward, department or clinic is unique, and eachwill have a different architecture, lay out, staff mix, work load,clinical practice but where you need to take action, the HSE offerssome useful principles.

Patient contact
Perhaps the most important form of risk assessment is where a nurseor practitioner comes into contact with the patient. It’shere where being able to do a last-minute risk assessment is soimportant – but it’s a good principle to adoptregularly in any workplace. It’s something that the emergencyservices also regularly adopt (calling it dynamic risk assessment)which helps them to decide whether to, for instance, give chase toa speeding motorist or enter a burning building.

Using such a tool encourages a safety culture and highlights theindividual’s responsibility to promote that culture. Whatrisk assessment is really about and why it is so important is thatit creates a new context, it’s a meeting place betweenprofessional carers and safety expertise. It is a problem solvingapproach that focuses on those who are actually getting hurt andchallenges the status quo as to what is and is not acceptable risk.

Remember the ‘health’
Many organisations often forget that health and safety is not justabout preventing accidents or injuries. It’s also aboutensuring that people’s work helps them to remain healthy.Work should not leave people with chronic illness or diseases,however, the sad fact is that it does.

Health and social care professionals have a statistically higherrate of ill health than other occupations and suffer significantlymore musculoskeletal disorders. Their rates of stress, anxiety anddepression are also statistically significantly higher than therate across all industries and there are also high prevalencerates. Slips and trips account for 2,000 serious accidents in thehealthcare sector each year.

Think about the activities that involve lifting or pulling thatmight cause musculoskeletal disorders. Violence and aggression thatyour staff may face is not only a safety problem, it could alsohave resulting health effects in the sense of trauma orpsychological problems. You need to be prepared to deal with thistoo.

Stress is another major issue across all industries. You can helpreduce this by ensuring staff have adequate time to take breaks andeat their meals – do not let them eat “on therun”. Alcohol should be avoided, particularly in thehealthcare setting. Encourage them to focus on one job at a timeand try to stop rushing and being available to everyone andencourage your staff to make time for exercise and relaxation.Finally, don’t force staff to work extra bank shifts as thisis more likely make them become ill, when they are alreadyexhausted.

Your organisation should have a policy on how to deal with stressrelated ill health. If you or a member of your team is experiencingstress related ill health it is important to seek help tounderstand the situation and provide support. A plan can then bedeveloped to deal with the causes of the stress and considerwhether this is actually a wider organisational issue. The HSE hassome relevant case studies of interventions in the health caresector.

It’s also worth getting your staff vaccinated to immunisethem against flu, Hepatitis A, B and other common infections. Handwashing is critical in the health sector as this reduces the spreadof infection, so it’s important for your staff to know how todo this properly. Getting it wrong can be deadly.