The kitchen is a place which is not only the busiest, but also the most dangerous and life threatening when the appropriate control measures aren’t taken. A risk assessment is the best way to ensure that the kitchen is a safe place. It’s not only made mandatory by the law, but also a crucial step in providing protection to your kitchen team, and also a safe working environment for your staff. Kitchens can be especially hazardous workplaces — so you need to make sure that the assessment is done on point.
Risk assessments help you identify the major potential hazards present in your kitchen and help you focus on those hazards which can cause real pain to your employees. Once you decide on carrying out an efficient kitchen risk assessment, ACSUK Group will help you with a full risk assessment of your kitchen and have you covered. It shall help you identify, analyze, and resolve the potential hazards in your kitchen. Once you decide on the services, you can now start to take the necessary steps to control the risk.
Steps to conduct a risk assessment:
In a perfect kitchen, food delivery is at one end, and finished meals are at the other end. A risk assessment considers the probability of a hazard and the final consequences in case that hazard occurs. It will take into consideration what the existing control measures are, and what future measures can be further implemented so as to lower the level of risk as much as possible. Well, luckily for you, there are quite a few services which offer to carry out efficient risk assessments, as well as industrial cleaning in Manchester.
- Hazard identification: A great starting point is to walk around your kitchen and note down whatever hazards that are common to your view. These can include slippery floors, burns from exposed heat sources, sharp objects etc. You should always check on the manufacturer’s’ instructions as they tell you clearly what hazards can take place. Check up on your past records of incidental accidents and also consider long term health hazards such as chemical impacts.
- Who is to be harmed: Now that you have a clear idea regarding what the hazards are, you need to consider next how it can harm an individual. You need to identify how bad and whom the hazard will impact. You can ask your staff on this matter, and take into consideration what they think about the hazard. They might offer a separate perspective and help you look into a matter which you otherwise wouldn’t have noticed.
- Evaluate risks: Now, you need to pay attention to the risk, and decide if you can eradicate it completely, or lower it down to an unharmful level. You can do this by options for a less risky alternative, or organizing work in a better way or preventing chances of the hazard or providing first aid or offering protective gear etc.
- Note down findings: The next step is to record your significant findings regarding the hazard and how it can harm your people and how to prevent it. Keeping a written record of your findings shall help you review it in the future. It shall help you at a later date in cases of changes in the law or business expansion etc.
- Update assessment: Workplaces keep on changing and more than you realize, you will be bringing in new changes starting from newer team to newer equipment and process. This can be the reason of newer hazards propping up, and that’s the reason you need to review it and update the assessment process on a regular basis. Your records need to be up to date and you need to ask yourself a few important questions. These questions involve if there are any improvements needed or significant changes that took place, or if workers have noticed any trouble etc.
So, these were the main steps that you need to follow for an efficient risk assessment process. You need to follow each of these religiously, plan out an effective strategy and make sure everybody in your kitchen is very much involved.