Accidents and ill health can ruin lives, and affect your business as well. Some losses after an accident are obvious, for example if output is lost or machinery is damaged. However, there are hidden or consequential costs, such as increasing insurance premiums, or the time and expense associated with having to go to court.

There is no such thing as a risk free workplace but you can minimise threats to the health and safety of your employees. Conducting a risk assessment is the key to effective management of health and safety and is a legal requirement specified in The Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

Small businesses have a duty under health and safety law to carry out risk assessments. The law also requires that if you have 5 or more employees you must record the significant findings of your assessment.

Even if you are self employed, and do not have employees, you still need to assess health and safety risks which may affect you and others (e.g., other contractors, office staff, members of the public, not forgetting temporary or agency workers and other people's employees).

The larger your firm, the more likely it will be that you can call upon a responsible employee, safety representative or safety officer to help you.

No matter what size your company is, MacDonald Martin can carry out a risk assessment specifically tailored for you.

Small businesses will have few hazards and so the assessment process should be fairly short.

Larger, multi-site organisations can benefit from employing MacDonald Martin to apply a consistent approach for risk assessments across all of its business sites.

We can ensure that the risk assessment isn't over complicated even for larger businesses. In most firms in the commercial and light industrial sectors, the hazards are few and simple but assessing them is a necessity. We will involve your employees, who know the job and may have some practical ideas/solutions to contribute.

We will conduct the risk assessment by making a careful examination of what, in your work, could cause harm to people, and then weigh up whether or not you have taken enough precautions or should do more to prevent harm. Although compliance is required by law, we never lose sight of the fact that the ultimate aim is to make sure that no-one gets hurt or becomes ill.

To find out more about how MacDonald Martin can help you with your HSE Risk Assessments please contact or ring us on 0191 525 1299 for a no obligation quote.