IOSH Working Safely cheat sheet

The core legal duty of every worker: take reasonable care of your own health and safety and that of others affected by your acts or omissions, and cooperate with the employer on safety measures.

Employer duties under health and safety law: provide a safe workplace, safe systems of work, safe plant and equipment, competent supervision, information, instruction and training, and a written safety policy where required.

Hierarchy of control order: eliminate the hazard, reduce it, isolate it, control it, then protect the person with PPE as the last resort - PPE is the weakest control because its effectiveness depends on correct use.

A hazard is anything with the potential to cause harm; risk is the combination of the likelihood of that harm occurring and its severity.

Risk assessment is a five-step process: identify hazards, decide who might be harmed and how, evaluate the risks and decide controls, record the significant findings, and review and update.

A near miss is an unplanned event that did not cause injury but had the potential to; reporting near misses gives early warning of failure before harm occurs.

A written risk assessment is legally required where the employer has five or more employees; below that number a record is good practice but not mandatory.

A safety policy has three parts: a statement of intent (general aims), the organisation (who is responsible for what), and the arrangements (the practical systems and procedures).

Reportable serious incidents under RIDDOR include deaths, specified injuries, dangerous occurrences, and over-seven-day injuries that keep a worker off normal duties.

Risk rating = likelihood × severity; a hazard rated high on either factor moves up the priority list for control.

Hazard categories to check systematically: physical, chemical, biological, ergonomic, psychosocial, and work-organisation factors.

Acute harm is immediate and short-term (a cut, a burn, a fall); chronic harm develops over time from repeated or prolonged exposure (noise-induced hearing loss, vibration white finger, dermatitis).

Exposure routes for hazardous substances are inhalation, ingestion, skin absorption, and injection; inhalation is the most common route in the workplace.

Risk control follows the hierarchy: elimination, substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls, then PPE - later options rely on human behaviour and are less reliable.

A hazard is not the same as a risk: water on a floor is a hazard; the risk depends on how likely people are to walk on it and how badly they could fall.

Residual risk is what remains after controls are applied; it must be tolerable, and controls need monitoring to confirm they still work.

Personal factors that raise individual risk include young or inexperienced workers, new or expectant mothers, disabled workers, lone workers, and anyone new to a task.

Safety signs use a colour code: red for prohibition and fire equipment, yellow for warning, blue for mandatory action, green for safe condition and escape routes.

Slips, trips and falls: main causes are contamination (wet or oily floors), obstructions, poor lighting, uneven surfaces, and trailing cables; they are the most common cause of workplace injury.

Work at height: falls from ladders and stepladders are a leading cause of death; ladders are for short-duration, low-risk work only, and three points of contact is the rule.

Manual handling injuries mostly affect the lower back; assess the task using load, individual, task and environment factors, and avoid twisting while lifting.

Hazardous substances: check the label and safety data sheet; a substance hazardous to health includes those with workplace exposure limits, biological agents, dust, and substances with harmful health effects.

Electricity: the main dangers are shock, burns, fire, and explosion; portable appliance inspection, RCD protection, and keeping water away from equipment are key controls.

Machinery: the main hazards are entanglement, crushing, cutting, and impact; guarding must prevent access to dangerous parts, and interlocks stop the machine when the guard opens.

Noise: risk of hearing damage rises with level and exposure time; hearing protection is a last resort after reducing noise at source, and it must fit and be worn correctly.

Display screen equipment: risks include musculoskeletal problems, eye strain, and fatigue; controls include correct chair and screen height, breaks, and eye tests for regular users.

Fire: the fire triangle needs fuel, oxygen, and a source of ignition; controls include removing or reducing fuel, controlling ignition sources, detection, alarms, and clear escape routes.

Vehicle and transport hazards: the main risks are being struck by moving vehicles, falls from vehicles, and loads shifting; segregation of pedestrians and vehicles is a primary control.

Active (proactive) monitoring looks for hazards and failures before harm occurs - inspections, audits, safety sampling, and near-miss reporting; reactive monitoring investigates harm and incidents after the event.

The accident ratio shows that many near misses precede each minor injury, and several minor injuries precede each serious one; reporting near misses is therefore an early-warning system.

Accident investigation aims to find root causes, not to blame individuals; immediate causes (unsafe acts, unsafe conditions) sit above underlying and root causes.

Key performance indicators for safety include accident and incident rates, near-miss reports per period, training completion, inspection scores, and corrective actions closed on time.

A safety culture has three visible levels: what people say and believe, how they behave, and the physical systems and controls in place.

Consultation with workers is a legal requirement where there are employees; safety representatives can be appointed, and workers must be consulted on matters affecting their health and safety.

Training must be given at induction and refreshed when tasks, equipment, or risks change; competence means the person has the knowledge, skill, and experience to work safely.

A permit-to-work system is used for high-risk tasks such as hot work, confined-space entry, and work on live electrical systems; it records the precautions and authorises the work.

A toolbox talk is a short, task-specific briefing; it is most effective when it covers the actual hazards of the job about to be done, not general safety messages.