Risk assessment

For all activities in Sweden, including universities, colleges, and regions, there are requirements from several different authorities such as the Swedish Work Environment Authority, the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency, the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority and others for active and preventive work to avoid dangers and accidents by conducting risk assessments. The activities' insurers also require preventive work. Risk assessment requirements apply to all types of work, including research and development work, health care and teaching, and mean that all handling of something that is potentially dangerous must be risk assessed.

Additional reasons for preventing accidents by conducting risk assessments, in addition to the risk of people being injured in accidents, are to prevent equipment or premises from being damaged in accidents. This is because it can take a very long time to repair or restore and sometimes it is not even possible – which could have serious consequences for research, teaching or care. Compensation from insurance is also limited.

A risk assessment should be carried out on, for example, work phases, laboratory work and equipment, before changes or when an incident or accident has occurred. When conducting a risk assessment, it is important to consider all aspects that affect the work, such as competence and experience, temporary workers such as doctoral students and undergraduates, working alone, the design of the equipment and workplace, chemicals, procedures in the operation, stress and workload. A special risk assessment for chemical products is carried out in KLARA. A risk assessment must therefore be carried out before all potentially hazardous work. So unless it is obvious that there are no hazards at all, risk assessment should be done before all hazardous work, which includes most work carried out in labs and workshops.

Affected managers, employees and students must be aware of the risks that occur in the work. It is therefore important that results of risk assessments are communicated to all concerned. Risk assessments should always be documented in writing and for tasks where serious risks have been identified, there should be written procedures.

A risk assessment is not static but also needs to be regularly revised to stay up to date.

To ensure that care, research and education can be conducted without disruption, it is also important to protect equipment and premises.

When?

Risk assessment should be carried out or at least started during planning, before purchasing or acquiring materials and equipment. It should be revised when something changes, for example concentration, temperature, material, electric current, room design, ventilation etc.

Risk assessments need to be reviewed regularly to capture changes in methods, processes or other factors, if there are other conditions, such as other legal requirements, new premises etc. In the event of major changes that have a bearing on the risks, a new version of the risk assessment must be produced with a new signature from the responsible manager. If only editorial changes or minor changes are made that are not significant to the risks, a new signature is not required.

If accidents or incidents occur, the risk assessment must be reviewed and updated if necessary.