What does assessing mean?

Assessing risks means establishing whether a danger is present for workers and hence whether there is a need for practical occupational safety and health measures. Every single hazard you have identified must be evaluated and documented.

How must I assess?

Estimate whether the hazards identified can lead to an accident or other form of health damage. Begin with the assessment of hazards by checking the following and documenting them accordingly:

1. Comparison with standardised protection goals
(legally specified minimum requirements)

Research the relevant legal references for all hazards determined. If the hazards determined have already been described concretely in government or Berufsgenossenschaft provisions (laws, ordinances, accident prevention regulations or technical rules) and if there exist corresponding specifications, these must be complied with in order to attain the protection goal required – the safe required state.

One example of this is provided by the occupational exposure limits for hazardous substances. These lay down the maximum concentration of a substance (airborne) which can still be approved of as harmless. The assessment of the hazard has already been undertaken here by experts.

Detailed statements relating to specified minimum requirements for the individual risk factors can be found under our heading Expert knowledge.

Note:

Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act it is not sufficient to secure workers' safety and health at work by occupational safety and health measures, but rather safety and health protection should also be improved. To achieve this objective, the measures taken must be adapted in accordance with the constantly developing state of the art. Depending on the operational circumstances, it often makes sense and is partly essential to formulate more extensive protection goals instead of the minimum requirements.

2. Check whether there are concepts for adequate control measures

In ordinances, such as the Biological Agents Ordinance and the Hazardous Substances Ordinance, the legislator has introduced protection levels. Each protection level describes measures (substitute solutions, technology, organisation, protective equipment) and criteria for checking the effectiveness of protective measures taken (or already in place).

If there are no concrete, substance-related or activity-related specifications on protective measures, for example in Technical Rules for Hazardous Substances (TRGS), a decision must be taken in the risk assessment on what protection level should be applied to an activity involving hazardous substances. With the determination of the protection level an evaluation is made of the hazard.

3. Find out whether evaluation aids exist

To evaluate hazards use can be made of evaluation aids which are recommended by the competent government and Berufsgenossenschaft bodies. Examples of these are the Key Indicator Method for evaluating the manual handling of loads and the Easy-to-Use Workplace Control Scheme for Hazardous Substances (EMKG).

What do I have to do if there are no concrete specifications for the hazards identified?

If you have researched for all risk factors the relevant legal references and evaluation aids and there is still a lack of concrete specifications for the hazards identified (as described in step 2), you must estimate and evaluate the remaining risks. Establish how serious the accident hazard or a health impairment may be and the probability with which it may occur.

Risk estimation

In the risk estimation the following are estimated:

• the extent of possible damage which may be caused by the hazard under examination and
• the probability of this damage occurring

Risk evaluation

In the risk evaluation it is established whether the risk is lower than the highest acceptable risk. If the risk evaluation yields the result that the risk present cannot be accepted, it must be reduced.

In the literature you will find various procedures you can use to assess hazards. Possible examples here are the Nohl procedure ("Risk Matrix") ¹⁾ or the decision tree according to DIN EN ISO 13 849-1.

¹⁾ Nohl, J.; Thiemecke, H.: Systematik zur Durchführung von Gefährdungsanalysen, Teil I und II, Bremerhaven: Wirtschaftsverlag NW 1988 (publication series of the Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health research reports Fb 536 and Fb 542)