On May the 12th 2009 a little 2 year old boy walked across a busy fairground from the bouncy castle to the ‘Go- Gator’ ride, where he sustained substantial head injuries, he was unfortunately pronounced dead at hospital. The accident happened at Manning’s fun fair, Ducketts Common in Haringey. Although the HSE and the local police are still investigating this tragic incident, is there anything else that could have been done to prevent any person from entering moving parts of your machinery?
A proper risk assessment has to be done to identify all the risks which can cause real harm. Your risk assessment does not have to be a complicated series of rules and regulations. Your risk assessment should start off by asking what kind of dangers are present.
To identify these you should walk around your site looking and taking notes, ask the workers as they are often the people who see the hazards at first hand.
For each hazard you have to decide who will be harmed, try and group people, for example pregnant mothers, young children and the disabled. Again ask your employees as there might be something you have missed.
Once you have identified the risks you have to do everything ‘reasonably practicable’ to protect people from harm. Once all the hazards are identified write them down, document them, this will give the people working around you an idea of what to look for, make sure that all employees are aware of your findings as good training is essential.
Lastly, you should record any accidents that happen this will enable you to update your risk assessments. You have to reach a balance of the unachievable total safety and bad management which will cause harm to people.
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