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Part II Laboratory and Research Safety Requirements
Section B Laboratory & Research Safety Management

B06 Risk Assessment Procedures And Guidance

1. Introduction
Modern scientific laboratories may be associated with a variety of hazards arising from hazardous chemicals, infectious agents, ionizing and non-ionizing radiation sources, etc. Risk assessment, as one of the essential elements of laboratory safety management, shall be adopted as a tool for assessing the potential risks in connection with these hazards. This document briefly explains the assessment procedures and provides guidance for
completing HKSTP’s Risk Assessment Form.

2. Hazard and Risk
A hazard is any source of potential damage, harm or adverse effects on something or someone.
Risk is the chance or probability that a person will be harmed or experience an adverse health effect if exposed to a hazard. It may also apply to situations with property or equipment loss, or harmful effects on the environment. It may also be elaborated as:
Risk = Severity of hazard x Probability of occurrence

3. Risk Assessment Procedures
A simple five steps method for risk assessment is introduced in this document. These five steps are explained as follows:

3.1. Identify the hazards:

1. Be aware of any changes to the on-going experiments or any new experiments to be conducted, and consider the potential associated hazards;
2. Walk around the laboratories and look afresh at what is reasonably be expected to cause harm;
3. Check manufacturer’s instructions;
4. Look back at the accident or incident records;
5. Remember to think about long-term hazards to health.

3.2. Decide who may be harmed:

1. Think about some workers who might have particular requirements (e.g. temporary workers, contractors, people with disabilities, lone workers, etc.) and who might not be in the laboratories all the time (e.g. visitors, contractors, maintenance workers, etc.);
2. If you share the laboratory with other parties, consider how your work affects others and how their work affect you and your workers;
3. Ask your workers if there is anyone you may have missed.

3.3. Evaluate the risks

1. Check if all the safety control measures required by laws, HKSTP’s safety guidelines or other relevant international standards are in place;
2. Then ask yourself if you can get rid of the hazard altogether;
3. If not, think about how you can control the risks in the priority of substitution, engineering controls, administrative controls or personal protective equipment, so that the harm is unlikely;
4. Consider if the proposed safety control measure create another hazard.

3.4. Record your findings: Use HKSTP’s Risk Assessment Form (SHE Form L05, Part II of SHE Handbook) to record the findings.
Fill in the necessary information as well as assessment results:

1. The identified hazard;
2. People at risk;
3. Existing control measures;
4. Risk rating – this is the current risk rating based on the risk matrix as described in the next section;
5. Proposed action(s) to further reduce risk – think of any remaining hazard and propose further practical action(s) to reduce the risk;
6. Residual risk rating – the is the prospective risk rating if the proposed further action is completed;
7. Responsible person – refers to the person who will take action or assign a delegate to take action;
8. Completed by: refers to the date when action is completed.

3.5. Review your risk assessment: Laboratory setups, including equipment, materials, or procedures, may subject to frequent changes that could lead to new hazards. Risk assessments should be reviewed annually. It also makes sense to review what you are doing on an ongoing basis, look at your risk assessment again and ask yourself:

1. Have there been any significant changes?

2. Are there improvements you still need to make?

3. Have the laboratory workers spotted a problem?

4. Have you learnt anything from accidents or near misses?

Make sure your risk assessment stays up to date.

4. Risk Matrix
Risk matrix is used as a tool in the process of qualitative risk assessment. A two dimensional 5x5 risk matrix is adopted in HKSTP’s Risk Assessment Form. The likelihood or probability of an occurrence is expressed along the Y axis whereas its severity of consequences on the X axis. For the 5x5 matrix, there are 5 levels of likelihood and 5 levels of severity, each of which has an index (from 1 to 5) as described below. The higher index represents greater likelihood or higher severity for an occurrence. Final risk rating for the specific occurrence is obtained by multiplying these two indexes. To facilitate the implementation of suitable remedial action, the risk rating is grouped into 4 categories:

1. Low risk (risk rating 1 – 3): Acceptable risk; no additional control measure is needed.
2. Medium risk (risk rating 4 – 9): Monitor continuously and consider any further remedial action is feasible to eliminate or reduce the risk.
3. High risk (risk rating 10 – 16): Urgent remedial action is required and the work activity should be closely monitored for further safety enhancement.
4. Very high risk (risk rating 20 – 25): The work activity must be suspended immediately till proper risk control measures are in place.

5. Common Laboratory Hazards and their Control Measures
To facilitate HKSTP’s clients in carrying out risk assessments in laboratories, many common laboratory hazards and their suggested control measures are enlisted in Annex 1. However, it is important to note that this guidance does not identify all possible hazards. Assessors should ensure that they have identified all the hazards that are associated with their particular laboratory activities and devise suitable control measures.

Annex 1. Common Laboratory Hazards and their Control Measures

1. Hazardous Chemicals and Drugs

2. Compressed Gas Cylinders and Cryogens

3. Biological Agents

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