Risk Management and HIRA

It is important to note that risk management and HIRA are not synonymous. HIRA forms part of a bigger, more comprehensive management approach. Hazard identification and risk assessment are two of the first process involved. Modern occupational safety and health legislation usually demands that a HIRA be conducted prior to the performance of an intervention or activity. It should be kept in mind that risk management requires risk to be managed to a level which is as low as is reasonably practical.

It is now well recognised that risk assessment is an ideal process on which to build a pro-active health and safety management system that can lead to dramatic improvements in health and safety performance.

Risk management, which includes risk treatment, results in various outcomes, including: 

• existing codes of practice, standards, rules, procedures and work instructions are reviewed, and/or new practices are developed;
• an outcomes-based education and training philosophy to OH&S is developed;
• the effectiveness of existing management systems is reviewed; and
• compliance and progress is monitored continuously.

A primary objective of risk management is to assist the organisation to address foreseeable significant health and safety risks. The focus should be placed on ways and means to control the effect of identified hazards only when it becomes clear that it is practically impossible to eliminate the specific hazards.