Risk assessment

Abstract Adult nurses work with people in hospitals, hospices, community care services, and people’s homes. The complexity of modern healthcare carries with it inherent risks to safety, not only through clinical decisions and practices, but also through risk associated with healthcare technology and environments. Irrespective of the place of work, there are many routine procedures which are an important part of reducing risk to people and organizing subsequent nursing work. It is recognized that all organizations will use different risk assessment tools and recording procedures, but there are generic principles of safety which underpin all these tools. An important aspect of nursing decision-making and practice is understanding and managing risk and factoring risk management into the planning and delivery of nursing care. This chapter considers the broad principles of the risk assessment tools which are widely used across healthcare environments.