Likelihood of Harm

When seeking to establish likelihood of harm the adequacy of control measures already implemented and complied with needs to be considered. Here national legal requirements and codes of practice are good guides covering controls of specific hazards. The following issues should then typically be considered in addition to the work activity information:

• Number of personnel exposed; 
• Frequency and duration of exposure to the hazard; 
• Failure of services e.g. electricity and water; 
• Failure of plant and machinery components and safety devices; 
• Exposure to the elements; 
• Protection afforded by personal protective equipment and usage rate of personal protective equipment; 
• Unsafe acts (unintended errors or intentional violations of procedures) by persons, for example, who: 

1. May not know what the hazards are; 
2. May not have the knowledge, physical capacity, or skills to do the work; 
3. Underestimate risks to which they are exposed; 
4. Under estimate the practicality and utility of safe working methods. 

It is important to take into account the consequences of unplanned events.

These subjective risk estimations should normally take into account all the people exposed to a hazard. Thus any given hazard is more serious if it affects a greater number of people. But some of the larger risks may be associated with an occasional task carried out just by one person, for example maintenance of inaccessible parts of lifting equipment.

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