Writing Risk Assessments

Created by Thomas Weller, Modified on Wed, 20 Sep, 2023 at 1:22 PM by Sam Baran

Writing risk assessments can be a challenging task, but they are essential for any activity you choose to do. This article should hopefully make writing a risk assessment easier for you.

Why do we have risk assessments?

Risk assessment

The main purpose of any risk assessment is risk prevention. Activity organizers such as yourselves, venue managers and employers have a responsibility to reduce or eliminate risks where activity is taking place. After identifying hazards and analysing the risks they pose, control measures should be put in place.

Every student group will have some activities that may pose a risk, albeit some will be very low risk, and some may be very high risk. The likelihood is that you will have some activities that pose a high level of risk or have potentially dangerous consequences, and for those activities, you will need to put measures in place to reduce the likelyhood of things going wrong!

How to write a risk assessment

To write a risk assessment, create a table (like below) and fill it out with the prompts provided.

Hazards and how they may cause harm	Who may be at Risk?	Current risk level (Very Low, Low, Medium, High, Very High)	What further action and control measures are required by whom and when?	Final Risk Level
You should list the hazards here, along with how they will cause harm. Be as concise as possible.	E.g. your members, members of the general public, people using particular equipment or fulfilling a specific role.	You should consult the risk level table below and enter it here.	Actions required to control and manage hazards should be listed here, along with a date to have it completed by/put into place by. Along with the people responsible for making sure the action is complete.	List the new risk level here based on the additional control measures. It should hopefully now be Very Low or Low.

Determining Level of Risk

The risk level table below helps determine what level of risk each hazard is:

Very Low - Acceptable risk, no action required.
Low - Tolerable risk, no further control measures are required but the status must be monitored.
Moderate - Further control measures required to reduce risk as far as reasonably practical.
High - Urgent activity required to allow activity to continue.
Very High - Risk intolerable, activity must cease until the risk has been reduced.

		Severity
		Superficial	Minor	Serious	Major	Extreme
Likelihood	Unlikely	Very Low	Very Low	Low	Low	Moderate
	Possible	Very Low	Low	Low	Moderate	High
	Likely	Low	Low	Moderate	High	Very High
	Very Likely	Low	Moderate	High	Very High	Very High
	Certain	Moderate	High	Very High	Very High	Very High

The severity is how serious the outcome would be if someone was injured from a hazard:

Superficial- injuries include bumps, small cuts, abrasions etc.
Minor- injuries that could result in treatment required offsite and may involve limited time off work less than 7 days.
Serious- Injuries that require 7 or more days off work.
Major- Injuries that include broken limbs, serious head injuries, injuries that affect sight, asphyxiation etc.
Extreme- fatality or life changing injuries.

The likelihood is how likely a hazard would injure someone:

Unlikely- Has not happened previously, not expected to happen again.
Possible- Could occur sometime, but not expected to happen.
Likely- Has not happened previously but is expected to happen at some point.
Very Likely- Has happened before, expected it will happen again.
Certain- Very likely to happen. Not ‘if’ but ‘when’.

For example:

The Lacrosse Club is looking to hold taster sessions for students.

The possible hazards would be slips, trip and falls, being hit with sticks and balls, etc. The hazard could various injuries and the current risk level could be calculated below:

The LIKELIHOOD of INJURY is LIKELY
The SEVERITY of INJURY could be MAJOR.
Therefore, the CURRENT RISK LEVEL is HIGH
CONTROL MEASURES could be wearing protective equipment.
The new LIKELIHOOD is POSSIBLE, and the SEVERITY could now be MINOR. FINAL RISK LEVEL is LOW.

Download the risk assessment template below and give it a go. Submit your completed risk assessment to the SU by creating a ticket at the top of this page.

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