When I was on a training course for H and S for BA, one of the lecturers was an old boy, ex judge, who had in fact written a lot of the Factories Act 1961, interesting chap and was our after dinner speaker on the last day of an exhausting residential course.
Anyway something he said to us was often you hear the saying "there's no such thing as an accident". In truth, he explained there isn't, it's a series of events that lead to a final incident. Remove any one of those events and the incident is avoided. That event can be, an omission or an act and how we (royal we) mitigate to reduce the incidents is crucial but due to the nature of many incidents we can only assess the risks as they become apparent and then assess their severity.
You've guessed it was the H & S Six Pack 1999 regulations, the first time employers were made to complete Risk Assessments.
