Recently we undertook a DSEAR assessment at a large Blue Chip site; this was an update to a previous assessment. The business had realised that DSEAR, like any other risk assessment must be routinely reviewed and updated at appropriate intervals.
In fact the HSE usually recommends that DSEAR is updated every 3-5 years dependent upon the risk levels of the operations.
For this site the previous assessment had been completed some years before and there were a number of operational changes to consider. Over the years the business has made some physical and operational changes and these were clearly having an impact on DSEAR.
Additionally there were also changes in guidance issued by the HSE to incorporate into the assessment; some of these had an impact on the hazardous zoning applied to the parts of the site.
It was also evident that a small number of potential hazards had been overlooked in the previous assessment and these could have had a major impact on safety in certain circumstances. This clearly shows the benefit of not just looking once and thinking that’s it; job done. It’s vitally important that DSEAR is kept under on-going review and when appropriate the assessment is fully updated.
