IOSH Managing Safely - Activity Hazards

If you are completing your IOSH Managing Safely project you will be aware that you are expected to differentiate between various hazard types.

The activity hazards are important because if you get one of these wrong (in part 4) you will lose all of the associated points in the remainder of the project (parts 5 & 6).

Take care!

Activity hazards are those things that cause problems by the doing.

So, what does that mean? Stay with me here -

Let's take a look at cutting sheet metal with an angle grinder:

The cutting disc is partially exposed and the operative could cut themselves on this rotating disc. This is an equipment hazard, it is the disc that causes the problem.

The area is poorly lit and operatives cannot see sufficiently well. This could cause them to accidentally come into contact with the disc. A location hazard. It is the nature of the light in this place that gives rise to the problem.

When using the disc cutter the operative is bent over the material for prolonged periods. This is an activity hazard. It is the bending/stooping that causes the problem.

When you complete your project you will need to be descriptive in your answer.

For each hazard you will need to describe the work activity. In our example a poor answer might be "cutting sheet metal". It doesn't describe fully what is happening. "cutting 5mm thick sheet metal using an angle grinder with 4" cutting disc, on a 700mm high worktop" might be better.

In describing the hazard we would need to identify that it is the stooping or bending hazard that is being considered. If it is being done for prolonged periods or repetitively you should include this too.

In identifying how many people are affected, along with their occupation, we should ensure that this part is consistent with part 1. Do not start identifying new people here and don't just copy your list from part one.

When you get to part 5 and you are asked to identify the work activity there is a key word missing from this column, "description". So, we don't need to apply the full detail that we provided in part 4. "Cutting sheet material" might be enough.

Part 5 also asks us to identify the hazard, the hazardous activity and the expected consequence. That's 3 different things. In our example "stooping for prolonged periods whilst cutting sheet material" might be our hazard; "causing fatigue or strain to the lower back" might be the hazardous event and "resulting in muskuloskeletal disorders such as muscle or tendon damage or ruptured intervertebral discs" might describe the expected consequence.

The people affected should be cross checked against those identified in parts 1 & 4.

The risk estimation is massively subjective but if you have identified that you hazard could result in death and you estimate the consequence as anything less that 5 you may have a hard point to argue. Similarly, if tripping is the problem there would probably be a higher likelihood than 1.

In part 6 you will need to identify an appropriate control such as "provide adjustable height work benches". This process may still include some stooping and bending but this control has reduced the amount of bending etc significantly. Such a control would reduce the likelihood of the operative suffering and injury as a result of bending and stooping. So long as there is still an element of bending in the process the hazard still exists and we would probably not have affected the consequence with this control.

When you re-estimate your risk make sure that you correctly identify the element that you have reduced (the likelihood or the consequence).

You can get more help with your IOSH Managing Safely project available here.