Most arguments about an assessment are really arguments about vocabulary. A hazard is a thing with the potential to cause harm; a risk is how likely that harm is and how bad it would be. Keeping them apart is what makes an assessment usable, because you control a hazard and you judge a risk, and the law's own qualifier, reasonably practicable, is a judgement about the second rather than the first.
Risk and hazard, defined so the difference is usable
A hazard is something with the potential to cause harm: a chemical, a gap in a floor, a machine with a moving part, a load, a virus, the way a shift is organised. A risk is the chance that somebody is actually harmed by it, together with how serious that harm would be. The reason to keep them separate is practical rather than pedantic. A hazard is either there or it is not, so it can be listed by walking around. A risk depends on who is exposed, for how long, and what is already in place, so it changes when you change those things, which is exactly what controls do. The commonest sign of a confused assessment is a hazard column full of risks: fall is a risk, the unguarded edge is the hazard, and only the second can be fixed.
Risks in the workplace, and why the list is shorter than people fear
Across most premises the same families recur: slips, trips and falls on the level; falls from height; being struck by something moving, whether a vehicle, a load or a swinging door; manual handling; machinery and hand tools; electricity; substances including dust and fume; fire; heat, cold and noise; and the ones people forget because they are not physical, which are lone working, violence and aggression where the public are present, and the organisation of the work itself. Five or six of those are the whole of a small business's assessment. The list is short because hazards recur across trades; what varies is which of them your work makes serious, and that is the part no template can supply.
As low as reasonably practicable, and how the weighing is done
Almost every duty in British safety law is qualified by so far as is reasonably practicable, and it has a specific meaning: you weigh the risk against the time, trouble and money of controlling it, and you have to do the control unless the sacrifice is GROSSLY disproportionate to the benefit. Three consequences follow. The weighing is done in advance and recorded, because after an incident the burden of showing it was not reasonably practicable falls on the employer. Cost alone is not an answer: the more serious the risk, the more expense is expected. And custom is not an answer either, because what everybody in the trade does can still be unreasonable. The phrase is not a loophole, it is the reason the law can ask for a decision rather than a specific piece of equipment.
What is the purpose of HSE, and who else enforces
The Health and Safety Executive is the national regulator: it writes the approved codes and the guidance, investigates serious incidents, inspects higher risk sectors and prosecutes. What surprises people is how much of enforcement is NOT theirs. Local authority environmental health officers enforce in offices, shops, warehouses, hotels, restaurants, leisure and care, which is most small businesses, and they also enforce food hygiene. Fire and rescue authorities enforce the fire safety order. The Office of Rail and Road, the Care Quality Commission, the gas registration scheme and the building control body each cover their own patch. The practical point is that a small retailer's safety inspector is usually from the council rather than from the HSE, and the two ask for the same documents.
EAWR 1989 and the other abbreviations that come up
The abbreviations are worth having in one place. EAWR 1989 is the Electricity at Work Regulations, whose regulation 4 is the duty to construct and maintain electrical systems so as to prevent danger, and it is the legal basis for both condition reports and appliance testing. HASAWA is the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974. MHSWR is the management regulations of 1999, which require the assessment. COSHH is substances, CAR asbestos, WAHR work at height, LOLER lifting, PUWER work equipment, DSEAR explosive atmospheres, CDM construction, RRO the fire safety order, and RIDDOR reporting. ACOP means an approved code of practice, which is not law but is evidence in court. And L8 and HSG plus a number are HSE publications rather than regulations, which is why nobody is prosecuted for breaching one directly.
What does RIDDOR mean, and what a riddor report is
RIDDOR is the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013. A RIDDOR report is a notification to the enforcing authority, made online, of one of a defined set of events: a death; a specified injury, which includes most fractures other than fingers, thumbs and toes, amputations, sight loss, serious burns, scalping, loss of consciousness from a head injury or asphyxia, and injuries from work in an enclosed space; an injury keeping a worker off their normal duties for more than seven days; a diagnosed occupational disease from the listed set; a dangerous occurrence from the listed set, with no injury at all; and an injury to a member of the public taken to hospital. It is not the accident book, which records everything else including over three day absences, and it is not an admission of fault: it is a notification the regulations require whatever the cause turns out to be.
What time frame should dangerous occurrences be reported in
Dangerous occurrences are reported WITHOUT DELAY, which in practice means the same day by the online form, and that is the same deadline as a death or a specified injury. The ones with a longer clock are the over seven day injury, reported within fifteen days of the accident, and occupational diseases, reported as soon as the written diagnosis is received. Records are kept for three years. The list of dangerous occurrences is specific and short, and the entries most likely to catch an ordinary business are the collapse or overturning of lifting equipment, the collapse of scaffolding above a stated height, an explosion or fire that stops work for more than twenty four hours, the accidental release of a substance that could injure health, and an electrical short circuit or overload causing a fire or explosion. Reporting one of those is not optional and the same day rule is the part people miss.
Electrical testing regulations, and which document each one asks for
Three regimes ask for electrical paperwork and they ask for different documents. The Electricity at Work Regulations require systems and equipment to be maintained so as to prevent danger, and the documents that evidence it are the condition report on the fixed installation and the register from appliance inspection and testing. The building regulations ask for notification of certain domestic work in England and Wales, and the document is the installation certificate plus a compliance certificate from the installer's scheme. And the private rented sector regulations ask a landlord in England for a condition report every five years with written confirmation of any remedial work, with Scotland and Wales reaching the same interval through their own law. Nothing in any of them uses the words annual PAT test or electrical certificate, which is why those two phrases produce so much confused shopping.
Questions people ask about hazard v risk
Is a near miss reportable?
Only if it is one of the listed dangerous occurrences, which most near misses are not. Everything else is worth recording internally, and a business whose near miss reports go up is usually getting safer rather than more dangerous, because the reports are what let you fix something before it hurts anybody. Keep the internal list separate from the RIDDOR question so that nobody hesitates to report a near miss for fear of triggering a regulator.
Who makes the report?
The responsible person, which for an employee's injury is the employer, for a self employed person working on somebody else's premises is usually the person in control of those premises, and for an injury to a member of the public is whoever controls the premises where it happened. On a construction site it is normally the employer of the injured person, with the principal contractor informed. Getting the wrong person to report is not an offence; nobody reporting is.
Does an accident book satisfy RIDDOR?
No, and the two are often confused. The accident book is a record you keep, required for social security purposes and useful as evidence; the RIDDOR report is a notification you send. An event can need both, one, or neither. The practical arrangement is a single form that captures everything and a flag on it for whoever decides whether the event is reportable, so the decision is made rather than avoided.