In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to perform a risk assessment in disability care, using a simple and clear approach.
What is a Risk Assessment?
A risk assessment is a process used to identify potential hazards or situations that could cause harm to individuals and to determine how likely and severe these risks are.
Then you take steps to minimise or eliminate the risks, ensuring a safer environment for everyone involved whilst meeting Work Health & Safety compliance.
Risk Assessment Procedure
Risk Identification
- Start by looking at the environment where care is provided. Walk through the area and take note on your Risk Assessment Template of anything that could pose a danger to client, staff or others:
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client home environment e.g. trip hazards, egress issues, pets, electrical hazards, infection control, non-slip mats, grab bars, no first aid kit, no fire extinguisher.
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community activities e.g. parking, accessibility, loud noises, high risk hobbies, risk of behaviours in public
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home activities e.g. cooking, showering, transfers
- general e.g. potential for emergencies, availability of a first aid kid, long distance travel like STA, transportation or work vehicle safety, office workspaces if you have an office, health & medical issues of your client, medications, incidents, falls
Evaluate the Risks
- Evaluate the Likelihood and Consequence of a risk causing harm using a Risk Assessment matrix (this is a results table just like the maths times table matrix we used in school).
For example if a client has difficulty navigating stairs, ask yourself how likely they are to fall and what the impact would be. The likelihood is Possible, while the Consequence is Major (injury through a fall down stairs).
Using your risk assessment matrix, this results in an outcome of High risk.
Mitigate the Risks
- After evaluating the level of risk using your risk matrix, think of strategies to lower or eliminate the risk and record them on your assessment template. These strategies are called control measures.
- Put your control measures in place. For example, assisting a client physically to navigate stairs and assisting your client to obtain an OT report to fund the installation of a ramp at home.
- Provide appropriate training to any staff, to ensure they are equipped to support individuals with disabilities in a safe manner.
Documentation and Record-Keeping
- Ensure all staff, clients, and their household members have access to the risk assessment results and ensure they read and understand it.
- Maintain records of all risk assessments for seven years.
- Ensure you have a Risk Assessment Register to track and review your risk assessments.
Review
- Set review dates for every risk assessment. If you determine that risk assessments should be looked at every 6 months, on that date you should be re-looking at all of your assessments to determine if they’re still relevant or need further adjustments.
Conclusion
By following the outlined procedures sole traders and providers can systematically identify, assess and mitigate risks, promoting a safer and more inclusive environment and complying with Work Health & Safety laws.
This doesn't need to be a complex process. You should be able to knock over a risk assessment in 15-30 minutes. It's the control measures that may take time to consider and implement.
There are lots of resources on the internet to write up your own risk assessments and it's definitely do-able.
However if you wish to check out our website, we have very low cost Risk Management Bundle specifically for disability care, as we don’t believe in making templates unattainable. The bundle includes:
- Risk Management Policy & Procedure
- Risk Assessment Template
- Risk Matrix
- Risk Register
- Example templates included - Falls and Working Within the Home
In our bundle, we have an explanation of exactly what each level of Consequence means, what each level of Likelihood means and when you have an Outcome on the matrix, we have provided an explanation of what this outcome means for your control measures.
Have an amazing day!
Amanda Watterson
supporttoyou.com.au