Ways and Means of Risk Management - Report Example

Running head: RISK MANAGEMENT RISK MANAGEMENT Insert Name Insert Course Title Insert Instructor’s Name JUNE 7, 2010. OUTLINE: INTRODUCTION SAFETY POLICIES AND PROCEDURES FIRE STATION SAFETY A HAZARD AND A RISK HAZARDS IDENTIFICATION TYPES OF DESTRUCTION PRECAUTIONS  RECORDING OF FINDINGS REVIEWING THE RISK ASSESSMENT CONCLUSION INTRODUCTION There are a lot of worries concerning the safety of employees in corporations. Various firms have devised many approaches to the problem and are carrying out various risk assessments. According to section 19 in the `Safety, Health and Welfare Work Act 2005’ all managers along with those who organize learning to any level are required to recognize the hazards in the schools under their management and review the danger to `safety and health’ at work offered by these hazards. “Ultimately, reviewing risk refers to the fact that everything in the place of work that possibly will cause hurt to your workers, other workforce and additional people (together with customers, visitors in addition to members of the public) ought to be cautiously scrutinized. This lets you to approximate the extent of hazard and make a decision whether the hazard is adequate or whether additional safety measures require to be taken to thwart hurt” (Ward, 2003 p. 112). It is not important to think about every inconsequential danger or risk that we acknowledge as element of our daily lives. SAFETY POLICIES AND PROCEDURES The highest priority of a fire officer is to make sure that every subordinate member goes home alive from a call. Most fire departments have policies that regulate safety practices at the company level and schools. These policies are designed to address routine circumstances, and many have been developed in reaction to the previous accident or injuries. The fire officer is on the fore front in ensuring compliance with all safety policies. It is essential for fire officers and all other employees to understand fully each policy, to follow all safety policies and procedures. If this is not followed, there could be long lasting consequences for the students and the fire officer. In places like schools, the students should be taught on the risks that they are exposed to and how they can avoid the risks of fire. There are an assortment of techniques of letting community understand the safety policies and procedures. It can be done through briefing concerning the policies frequently in the work places and school assemblies. A more effective way is having them read the policy and then lead a group discussion to ensure that it is well understood. The reinforcement of the safety policies can be done through watching videos of incidents and critique them based solely on safety policies. This often reveals significant differences between the way things are supposed to be done and what actually occurs at an emergency incident. This can be a significant learning experience for everyone involved (Ward, 2003 p. 112). FIRE STATION SAFETY In addition to emergency situations, safety considerations also apply to the fire station environment. The fire station and other fire departments facilities are a work place and the fire department are fully responsible for maintain a safe work environment. Every fire department should have a comprehensive workplace safety program that applies to all fire department facilities. The station setting allows the fire officer to be even more proactive in enforcing safety policies than is possible at an incident scene. Safety hazards at the fire station can have the same consequences as hazards encountered at emergency incidents. The most important difference is that the fire department has control over the fire station environment at all times and has the ability, as well as the responsibility, to identify and correct any safety problems that are present. The fire department does not have the same type of control over the conditions that are typically encountered at the scene of an emergency incidence like schools (Ward, 2003 p. 113). A HAZARD AND A RISK A hazard, in broad-spectrum, refers to everything with the probable ability to cause impairment in stipulations of human hurt or infirmity, harm to material goods, damage to the surroundings or an amalgamation of these, e.g. chemical substances, machinery or methods of work, whereas risk means the likelihood, great or small, that an undesired event will occur due to the realization of a hazard. Risk is reliant on the possibility that a danger may take place, jointly with the brutality of the destruction endured/aftermaths. Risk is as well reliant on the capacity of inhabitants who may be prone to the danger. The mainly essential purpose is to make certain that nobody gets injured or happen to be ill. Accidents as well as infirmity can mess up with lives, and can as well impinge on business if production is lost, machines are broken, indemnity costs amplify, or if the case demands court ruling. Consequently, undertaking risk estimations, organizing and executing a `safety statement’ and maintaining the two up to date may not in themselves avoid catastrophe and infirmity except that they might play a vital role in minimizing their possibility. Remedial deeds ought to be exercised when necessary (Craighead, 2009 p. 203).  Hence, it is significant to carry out a Risk Assessment and set up a Safety Statement for: 1. Financial reasons: There is considerable confirmation, allowed out by companies’ realistic understanding that efficient safety and health management in the place of work add to company achievement. Industrial accident and infirmity impose considerable costs, often concealed and taken too lightly. 2. Moral and ethical reasons: The procedure of carrying out a risk evaluation, preparing a safety statement and implementing what you have written down will assist employers avoid injuries and ill-health at work.  Managers are morally required to do everything possible to make sure that their human resources do not experience illness, a severe mishap or demise. 3. Legal reasons: Practicing a hazard assessment, organizing a `safety statement’ and putting into service what you have jolted are not only essential to any `safety and health’ administration structure, they are demanded by ruling. `Health and Safety Authority’ assessors visiting places of work would like to know how managers are running health and safety. If they examine a disaster, they are going to analyze the risk evaluation as well as safety statement, along with the measures plus job performances in use. If the examiner discovers that one of these is insufficient, he or she may ask the manager to improve it. School managers can be put on trial if they have a poorly working safety statement. There are various steps that are undertaken when assessing the risks and the risk management. Every manager is obligatory to manage health and safety at job so as to avoid calamities and infirmity. The `safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005’ requires managers to take these five steps in risk assessment: Identify the hazards. Decide who might be harmed and how. Evaluate the risks and decide on precautions. Record your findings and implement them. Review your risk assessment. This process has a practical purpose. “It will assist bosses and supplementary task holders to administer workers’ `safety and health’, as well as get the steadiness right connecting the extent of every `safety and health’ troubles in addition to what could have been done concerning them. Here, we make suggestion of comparing the control standards with good performance to evaluate whether additional requirements need to be done (Harmathy 1985 p. 11). HAZARDS IDENTIFICATION The most important step in defense of `safety and health’ is to identify hazards from equipment, tools, chemicals as well as daily activities in schools. The teachers are required to thoroughly inspect the hazardous areas and co curricular activities to recognize hazards. (International Association of Fire Chiefs 2010 p. 114). Teachers will be familiar with the hazards connected with the type of activities that students undertake. But to identify the main hazards and put risks in their true perspective, principal and teachers can also check:  any relevant legislation or standards covering the hazard (e.g. the Construction Regulations for construction-site hazards, the  Chemical Agents Regulations and Code of Practice for chemical hazards and their control) records of accidents, ill health and insurance claims manufacturers’ instructions or datasheets   A number of dangers are explicable, such as reckless moving components of machines, hazardous vapors, electrical energy, operating at heights, or moving weighty loads. Less understandable, but at the root of many accidents, are hazards presented by disorderly dormitories and deprived maintenance. In the case of a variety of dangers, like extreme sound, it may take long time before harm happens. In most schools in the administrative center, the danger and hazardous work actions are not many and are simple. For larger firms, a dependable experienced employee or safety officer should be used. A check-list of vulnerabilities is available in the `HSA Guidelines’ on `Risk Assessments and Safety Statements’, obtainable in the HSA at `1890 289 389’ (International Association of Fire Chiefs 2010 p. 114). This checklist provides an orderly, though not comprehensive, approach to recognizing hazards in the workplace. This checklist covers physical hazards (e.g. manual handling, falls from heights, falling objects, electricity, housekeeping, slips/trips), health hazards (e.g. noise, lighting, vibration, radiation, dusts, temperatures), chemical hazards (e.g. glues, industrial solvents, dyes, pesticides, acids), biological agents hazards (e.g. bacteria, viruses, plant and animal substances) and human-factor hazards (e.g. vulnerable workers, mental/physical capability of workers substances) and human-factor hazards (e.g. vulnerable workers, mental/physical capability of workers, bullying, violence) (International Association of Fire Chiefs 2010 p. 114). TYPES OF DESTRUCTION All the relevant harmful effects that are related to the fire are going to be defined and quantified so as to identify what is a risk and what is not. The main harmful effect that is going to be measured is heat that is produced by fire to the property. When the cause of fire is something like explosions or missiles, there may be effects of pressure. This may adversely affect the structures around the risk area. Smoke and toxic materials will also affect the students and people around that area. The fire fighters are also affected and sometimes are injured. There are times when burning materials cause corrosion and this may bring harm to the properties. The extent of the damage caused by fire depends on the protective measures that are employed to fight the fire along with protecting the risk agents from these harmful effects. They include the methods employed to escape, installations for smoke control, availability of emergence services, blast walls, and explosion reliefs among many others in the time of fire fighting operations. The main factors in protecting risk agents from heat are the distance of separation and fire resistance. There are dispersion mechanisms for heat, toxic products and smoke that may assist. These are wind, air currents as well as the buoyancy forces of fire. The defensive procedures that can be in use should be evaluated. This will help in estimating the detriments of fire (Rasbash D., Ramachandran G. and Kandola B. 2004 p. 20). PRECAUTIONS A main attribute of the `Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004’ is the novel responsibility of every `fire and rescue’ establishments to endorse fire security in their region. Verification demonstrates that avoidance is healthier than treatment. Study illustrates, for instance, that more than half of the entire victims take place prior to FRAs are alerted. Bringing to a halt fires taking place at first will consequently rescue additional lives and make the public safer, principally in the midst of the nearly everyone in danger. Fire stands out to be a chief risk to sustainable population. The swiftness and effectiveness with which the `Fire and Rescue Service’ act in response to occurrences stands to be very important, although the most excellent approach to save life and decrease hurts and additional fatalities is to lessen the quantity of blazes that establish. Sorrowfully, facts reveal that other people pass away in blazes in hours of darkness for the reason that the blazes are further complicated by the instance they are exposed. Naturally, this results from the fact that people are sleeping, and probably since they may be lacking an operational smoke alarm. Some safety measures might have previously been put in to action. Risk assessment shows whether these measures are adequate or not. All `safety and health’ laws present trend on how to evaluate the risks and introduce appropriate protection.  RECORDING OF FINDINGS The security declaration is the place to document the important conclusion of the risk evaluation. This results to putting down the more considerable dangers and recording the mainly important conclusions. The manager ought to also affirm in the security declaration where the consequences of these confirmations are preserved. It is important to document all exposures as soon as possible using a standardized reporting form. At minimum, the record should include the following: Description of how the exposure occurred. Mode of transmission. Entry point. Use of personal protective equipment. Medical follow-up and treatment. The record of an exposure will become part of the member’s confidential health database. A complete record of the member’s exposure incidences must be available to the member up on request. Data on incident exposures should also be maintained by the department but without personal identifiers to allow for analysis of exposure trends and to develop strategies to prevent them. Ensure that all required federal, state, and local documentation is complete and accurate. The result of accident investigation should always include recommended corrective actions that are presented to the fire chief or the chief’s designated representative (Ward, 2003 p. 115). REVIEWING THE RISK ASSESSMENT The safety statement requires to being applicable at all times. Putting into practice the safety statement should be an essential part of everyday operations. A replica of the declaration or pertinent extracts of it ought to be held in reserve for examination at or in the vicinity of every place of work to which it relates. For this reason, it could be essential to amend it every time there are alterations or as soon as risk evaluations are undertaken and upgrading made that may have an effect on health and safety. The likely modifications may possibly comprise alterations in job procedures, technological information, apparatus or materials used, managerial configuration, as well as legislation or principles (Wilder, 1997 p. 80). Changes in the workforce may also have an impact, e.g. altering the number of workers on a particular process, replacing more experienced workers with trainees or as a result of experience gained through training. Nevertheless, it is not crucial to adjust the security declaration for each minor alteration, or for every novel career, except if a new job brings in considerable fresh hazards, you require to review the risks evaluations and put into operation the obligatory protective procedures (Wilder, 1997 p. 80). CONCLUSION It is very important for a company, school, or any organization to carry out risk assessment and come up with ways and means of risk management. This will help to prevent the so many losses that are incurred in event of an accident including deaths. The fire officer as well as the executives of companies should make sure that all the rules and regulations are fully adhered to. Safety policies should be well understood by every stakeholder in a company or in schools. Works cited: Craighead G, 2009. High-Rise Security and Fire Life Safety. USA. Butterworth-Heinemann. From: http://books.google.com/books?id=4BWyBELDQIwC&pg=PA203&dq=the+fire+risk+management+report&lr=&client=firefox-a&cd=4#v=onepage&q=the%20fire%20risk%20management%20report&f=false (accessed June 7, 2010) pg 203 Harmathy T. Z, ASTM Committee E-5 on Fire Standards, Society of Fire Protection Engineers, 1985. Fire safety, science and engineering: a symposium. Baltimore. ASTM International, 1985. From: http://books.google.com/books?id=IPJcMB89RjkC&pg=PA7&dq=fire+safety+engineering+proposal&client=firefox-a&cd=4#v=onepage&q=fire%20safety%20engineering%20proposal&f=false (accessed June 7, 2010) International Association of Fire Chiefs, National Fire Protection Association. 2010. Fire Officer: Principles and Practice. Sudbury. Jones and Bartlett publishers. From: http://books.google.com/books?id=lxEJhgY-1CcC&pg=PA115&dq=the+fire+risk+management+report&lr=&client=firefox-a&cd=2#v=onepage&q=the%20fire%20risk%20management%20report&f=false (accessed June 7, 2010) pg 114 Rasbash D., Ramachandran G. and Kandola B. 2004. Evaluation of fire safety. From: http://books.google.com/books?id=6htxtHDr0m8C&pg=PA71&dq=fire+safety+engineering+proposal&client=firefox-a&cd=1#v=onepage&q=fire%20safety%20engineering%20proposal&f=false (accessed June 7, 2010) Ward M, 2003. Fire Officer: Principles and Practice. Sudbury. Jones and Bartlett publishers. From: http://books.google.com/books?id=yXt5AW6bJiUC&pg=PA116&dq=the+fire+risk+management+report&lr=&client=firefox-a&cd=1#v=onepage&q=the%20fire%20risk%20management%20report&f=false (accessed June 7, 2010) Wilder S. S, 1997. Risk Management in the Fire Service. USA. PennWell Books. From: http://books.google.com/books?id=ZIQgLl7ULyEC&pg=PA73&dq=fire+risk+management+report&client=firefox-a&cd=7#v=onepage&q=fire%20risk%20management%20report&f=false (accessed June 7, 2010) Read More