Your Work Life & Risk Assessments

Nessie BrooksStaff Care Services

01732 526910

ME

• All decisions based on risk assessment• Life or death• History of the ‘hazard’• Outcome effect• Managing consequences• Response from OH………

• Aim – Is to agree Risk Assessments are on-going throughout your working life

Outline

• Stages in your working life• Risk Assessments - rationale– Employment Assessments– Pressure at work– Aging Population

Starting Out

Good

Work is Good for you

That’s only the case if there is a reasonable fit between individual capability and the nature of

the work

Assessing the Risk is not Rocket Science!

Employment Screening

• Health Questionnaire - confidential• Advise on Workplace adjustments –

• A2W

• Managers’ decision to implement – – Costs– Effectiveness– Practicability– Effect on others

The Happy Workforce

The ManagerCaring for your staff

What Risk Assessments?

• A main cause of sickness absence (KCC)»Mental Health

Managing Pressure

• Know the difference between Mental Health and Mental Illness

• There are NO stress Regulations• The Management Regulations 1999 impose a

duty to perform a risk assessment

Managing Pressure

• Valuing people for what they do• Recognising the workplace is a shared

environment – we all have responsibility• Most people appreciate some sense of

control• Most problems can be dealt with• When bigger problems occur they are

managed on the basis of their impact.

Legal Bit

• The claimant must prove psychiatric damage• Unless the employer knows of some particular

problem or vulnerability an employer is usually entitled to assume that the employee can stand the normal pressures of the job.

• The employer is only liable if he could have ‘reasonably foreseen’ that the employee was being made ill by the stresses of the job and failed to take ‘reasonable’ care to assist - by….

Adjustments

• Reducing workload• Providing assistance• Disciplining a bullying manager• Arranging treatment or counselling

The Aging Population

The Aging Population

• There are now 17,000 people with early onset dementia (onset before 65) in the UK. (comparatively rare)

• Mostly Females

The Aging Population

• Signs & Symptoms (some)• Ability to acquire and remember new information• Reasoning and handling of complex tasks• Poor judgement• Visuospatial abilities• Language function• Changes in personality and behaviour• Impaired activities of daily living

The Aging Population

• Workplace Adjustments• Reduce complexity• Avoid Risk• Reduce pressure (stress)• Work under supervision