Risk Assessment & Dynamic Risk Assessments for the protection of lone workers
Employers are by required by Health & Safety legislation and other supporting legislation to assess the risk of violence as they would any other workplace related potential hazard. This is the beginning or staring point of an objective process that includes control measures; included in this is training.
As well as assessing the risk regarding violence in the context of health and safety,
organisations must assess risk in the context of the services provided and consider all relevant related legislation and guidelines. The threat of violence must be mitigated as far as possible
There are two main types of risk assessment to assess the risk of violence
(1) Pre-Planned (2) unplanned normally referred to as Dynamic Risk Assessment
(1) Planned Assessment (carried out prior to duties being performed)
A planned assessment should be undertaken and reviewed at set intervals in accordance with the organisations policies on risk assessments by designated individuals. It is important that employers clearly set out who is responsible and what level of assessment is required, how and when these should be carried out.
Recording systems and tools need to be identified to support the process and they
must be effective in identifying and distributing key information to management and all relevant staff in relation to the risks of violence and where necessary should be evidence based.
Any need for further improvements, control measures or risk assessments should be recorded and the necessary time schedules for this recorded.
It is also essential to analyse reported incidents including any near misses, and to identify common events and how often they occur.
Planned (static) risk assessments, must include the following:
All Incident reports including near misses and threats & trends
Policies/procedures and role expectations
Environmental/situational risk factors
Tasks activities & any high risk duties performed by the staff etc
The Root causes behind the event and any other relevant information
Service user and any other bystanders considerations.
One of the UK’s top Health & Safety litigation barristers uses just 4 questions when deciding if there is a case to answer:
(1) Could the risk have been foreseen ?
(2) Where policies & Procedure put in place ?
(3) Were training needs identified and carried out ?
(4) Did the staff respond as they had been trained too ?
If a negative answer is given to any of the above then someone is liable and litigation will follow.
Dynamic risk assessment (carried out whilst performing duties)
A situations can develop suddenly usually by unexpected circumstances and an accurate dynamic situational risk assessment may have to be conducted on the spot.
Staff in these circumstances need to act in a way that they could legally & morally justify
They will need to make an immediate assessment of the situation and may have to employ escape tactics.
This is why good personal safety training is important staff should have been trained and provided with the necessary tools to make a safe retreat.
Research as established that when violence as occurred it was established that it was the individual staff members response that escalated the situation.
Example of a pre-planned & dynamic risk assessment
An health visitor is requested to make an home visit on an elderly lady (Lone working situation)
A planned risk assessment is carried out which identifies the following:
The lady is in her eighties and lives alone in a respectable rural county village
A check with on the critical incident register identifies no previous issues related to this property so this is rated as a low risk situation.
However the member of staff later visits the lady and the door is answered by a young untidy looking man who reluctantly lets the health visitor in.
The elderly lady identifies the young man as her nephew who is just visiting and goes on to say she had not seen him for many years prior to him turning up without any warning.
The heath visitor having been trained in personal safety & conflict resolution recognises the Warning signs being demonstrated by the young man and carries out a dynamic risk assessment.
The health worker has also been trained in breakaway skills and knows the importance of keeping her exits routes clear, maintaining a good reaction gap, and being pre-pared to use a pre- programmed response if the situation changers, e.g she starts to witness Danger signs
The pre-programmed response could be some-thing as simple as making an excuse to return to her vehicle for example claiming she need to go and get a benefit form from the car.
The use of any physical breakaway skills should only be used as a last result when all other forms of diffusion have been applied and failed.
Post critical incident debrief & review
All near miss incidents provide valuable learning enabling staff & management to evaluate the risk assessments control measures.
Staff should be encouraged to see every situation as a leaning experience (e.g No such thing as failure only feedback)
This particularly important in incidents involving conflict resolution and diffusions techniques e.g How could we do this better next time ?
Conclusion•
An effective work related violence risk assessment is the key factor to a successful violence prevention strategy
Planned risk assessments are the main starting position s and are necessary for the establishing good/effective control measures
Certain duties and job specific activities carry inherent risks should be identified within the risk assessment process to reduce the risk of violence
Dynamic risk assessment training will help staff to respond appropriately to a developing situation and minimise the risk of escalation into violence etc
Incidents and near misses need to be professionally monitored & assessed to ensure personal support and identify any further training needs
Enquiries need to concentrate on the Root cause
An effective training programme needs to be put in place incorporating all available risk assessment data and should be continually monitored
