Most RAMS documents are written in the wrong order. Somebody opens last month's file, changes the site address, works down the page filling in boxes, and submits it. The result reads plausibly and falls apart under any real scrutiny, because the sections of a RAMS are not independent — the hazards depend on the scope, the controls depend on the hazards, the PPE depends on the controls, and the emergency arrangements depend on where the work actually is.
Worked in the right order, a RAMS largely assembles itself. This is that order, with what each step actually needs and the check that proves you did it.
Step 1: Establish the scope before you write anything else
Everything downstream is derived from the scope, so an imprecise scope guarantees an imprecise document. Write the tasks in the sequence they will be carried out, name the areas of the site affected, and state the constraints — occupied building, live services, restricted hours, shared access with other trades.
"Installation of mechanical services" is not a scope. "Installation of ductwork at second-floor ceiling level from mobile scaffold towers, in an occupied office building, out of hours, including core drilling through blockwork partitions" is a scope, and it has already told you that you need to cover working at height, silica dust, noise, lone or out-of-hours working and interfaces with the building occupier.
Step 2: Gather the pre-construction information
Under CDM 2015 the client must provide pre-construction information, and the principal contractor must pass the relevant parts to you before you plan the work. That pack tells you about asbestos surveys, buried and overhead services, structural constraints, existing site rules and the phasing of other trades. Writing a RAMS without reading it means writing about a site you have imagined. If you have not received it, ask in writing — the request itself is worth keeping. Our guide to pre-construction information sets out what should be in the pack and who is on the hook for producing it.
Step 3: Fill in project details and document control
Site name and address, client, principal contractor, your company, a document reference, a revision number and the date. This is the part everybody treats as a formality and it is the part that decides whether anyone on site can tell which version they are holding. A RAMS with no revision number cannot be controlled, and an uncontrolled RAMS on a site with three revisions in circulation is worse than no RAMS at all.
Step 4: Identify hazards against the scope, line by line
Take the scope you wrote in step one and go through it task by task, asking what could cause harm at each stage. Include the hazards created by the environment as well as the ones created by your work — other trades overhead, vehicle movements, weather exposure, existing contamination.
The single most valuable check on any RAMS is a cross-reference between the scope and the hazard register: every activity named in the scope must produce at least one hazard, and every hazard must be traceable back to something in the scope. Working at height in the scope with no fall hazard listed, or a confined-space hazard that corresponds to no described activity, both mean the document was assembled rather than written.
Step 5: Score the risk before controls
For each hazard, record who might be harmed and how, then a likelihood and a severity rating, and multiply them for an initial risk score. The scoring matrix matters far less than being consistent with it — a five-by-five used honestly is more useful than a three-by-three used to make everything come out amber.
Step 6: Write control measures using the hierarchy of control
Regulation 4 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, and Schedule 1 to those Regulations, require the general principles of prevention to be applied — which in practice means the hierarchy of control. Eliminate the hazard if you can, substitute something less dangerous if you cannot, then engineering controls, then administrative controls, then PPE last. Prefabricating at ground level beats a harness. Extraction at the tool beats an FFP3 mask.
Every control must be specific enough that a supervisor could tell whether it was in place. "Take care" and "operatives to be vigilant" are not controls, they are hopes. If you are reaching for the hierarchy for the first time, our practical guide to the hierarchy of control works through what each level looks like on a real site.
Step 7: Record residual risk
Re-score each hazard assuming the controls are in place. This is the field most often left blank, and leaving it blank is what turns a risk assessment into paperwork: without it there is no statement anywhere in the document that the risk has actually been brought down to an acceptable level. If a residual score is still high, you have not finished — go back to step six and add controls, or change the method.
Step 8: Write the method statement as a sequence
The method statement is the how, in order: set-up and access, isolation and permits, the work itself broken into stages, and the make-safe at the end of each shift. Each stage should name who does it and reference the controls that apply. If a permit to work is needed — hot works, confined space, excavation near services, roof access — say which permit, who issues it and at what point in the sequence, and read what a permit to work covers if that is not already settled on your site.
Step 9: Complete competence, plant, materials and PPE
Name the supervisor rather than the job title. State the cards and certificates the work requires — CSCS for site access, CPCS or NPORS for plant, IPAF for MEWPs, PASMA for towers, CISRS for scaffolding, an approved first-aid qualification for the first aider. List plant by item with its inspection regime, and materials by name with a COSHH assessment reference for anything hazardous, including the dusts your own work will generate.
Step 10: Emergency arrangements, for this site
Named first aider, location of the first aid kit and any nearby defibrillator, the muster point taken from the current site plan, the nearest A&E with its address, the rescue plan for any work at height or in a confined space, and the reporting route for injuries and near misses. A copied muster point is the most common single error in the whole document, and it is the one that fails at exactly the wrong moment.
Step 11: Briefing, sign-off and version control
Record how the document will be briefed to the operatives and how that briefing is evidenced — usually a signature sheet or a toolbox talk record. Record who wrote the RAMS, who reviewed it and who approved it, with dates. Then add a revision history, because the next change is coming.
The pre-submission checks worth five minutes
- Every activity in the scope appears in the hazard register, and vice versa.
- No residual risk score is blank.
- No control measure relies on PPE alone for a significant hazard.
- Every hazardous substance has a COSHH reference.
- Every item of plant has an operator competency requirement.
- The muster point, first aider and A&E details are this project's, not the last one's.
- Dates, revision number and signatures are complete and consistent.
- Nothing anywhere names a different site, client or contractor.
That last one catches more rejections than anything else on the list. If you want the mechanical half of these checks done for you before a reviewer sees the document, that is exactly what Valify does — and uploading your first document takes about a minute. What it will not do, and should not do, is decide whether the method is right: that judgement stays with your competent person.
This article is general guidance on UK construction documentation practice. It is not legal advice, a compliance certification or a substitute for review by your own qualified health and safety personnel, who remain responsible for deciding whether any particular document is adequate. See our disclaimer.