Risk Assessment

• What is a Risk Assessment?

  Risk assessment is the process of:

  • determining the hazards to health and safety that exist for a particular task, item or work environment;
  • determining the importance of each hazard by assigning it a risk rating or risk score;
  • formulating risk control measures that are reasonably practicable to apply, that will reduce the risk rating/score to an acceptable level;
  • documenting all these matters, usually on a risk assessment form

  Further information is available in the Health & Safety: Risk management requirements document.

• Methodology

  The Health & Safety: Risk assessment methodology describes the metholodgy for completing risk assessments, using the University of Melbourne's risk assessment systems and processes. It explains botht he current software application and the hard copy application.

  Health & Safety: Risk matrix and definitions provides guidance on how to select the likelihood and consequence when rating a risk assessment
• ERMS (Enterprise Risk Management System)

  The Risk assessment tool used by the University of Melbourne is ERMS (Enterprise Risk Management System) WHS Risk Register module. Anyone with a University username and password can access the online system. The risk assessment forms listed below for anyone without ERMS access

• General Risk Assessment Templates

  Risk assessment templates that can be used for activities without an associated hazard specific assessment form (general risk assesments) include:

  • General risk assessment
  • Task risk analysis
  • Health and safety action plan
  • Standard operating procedure
• Hazard-Specific Risk Assessment Templates

  Hazard-specific risk assessment forms have been created to provide guidance to assessing many common hazard categories. These forms provide prompts about the hazards typically encountered during a specific activity.

  Note: for a full listing, search for "risk assessment" in the "search all" section on the Processes, policies and forms page.

  Topic	Risk Assessment Form
  Chemical	Chemical risk assessment form Guide to chemical risk hierarchy of control Sample laboratory notebook
  Confined Spaces	Confined space identification and risk assessment form
  Field Work	Field work risk assessment form
  First Aid	Refer: First Aid
  Manual Handling	Manual handling risk assessment form Guide to the manual handling hierarchy of control
  Noise	Noise hazard identification form
  Office Ergonomics	Computer workstation self-assessment checklist
  Plant	Plant risk assessment form
  Purchasing	Pre-purchase risk assessment checklist
  Radioactive Material	Radioactive material risk assessment form
  Traffic	Traffic management risk assessment form
  Travel Travel to high risk destinations risk assessment form	Non Unitravel risk assessment form For other travel requirements visit Staff Hub