& 
RAMS: Risk Assessment and Method Statement Training
One day on writing a risk assessment and method statement somebody will actually read. Most RAMS are written to get through a prequalification questionnaire. This course is about writing ones that change what happens on site.
About this course
RAMS is two documents doing two jobs. The risk assessment says what could go wrong and what you are doing about it. The method statement says how the job will be done, step by step, in an order that keeps the controls in place. Written well, together they are the plan. Written badly, they are a PDF nobody opened.
This course is for the people who produce, review or sign off that paperwork: supervisors, contract managers, health and safety representatives, team leaders and anybody who gets handed a template and told to fill it in before Monday.
It works through the whole thing properly. Identifying hazards on a real job rather than copying last job's list. Judging risk honestly. Working down the hierarchy of control instead of landing on PPE. Then sequencing the method statement so the controls appear where the risk appears, and writing it in language the person doing the work will understand.
It also covers the parts that get skipped: who has to see it, how you brief it, what to do when the job changes on site, and how to review it without just changing the date.
We run it at our centres in Stoke-on-Trent, Derby, Manchester and Liverpool, live online, and onsite nationwide. Run onsite, we will work through your own RAMS with you, which is usually the fastest way to raise the standard across a team.
- What a risk assessment and a method statement each have to do, and why they are not the same document
- The legal basis: the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 and suitable and sufficient assessment
- Identifying hazards on a specific job rather than reusing a generic list
- Assessing risk: likelihood, severity, and who might be harmed including people who are not yours
- The hierarchy of control, and why so many RAMS jump straight to PPE
- Sequencing a method statement so the controls sit where the risk sits
- Writing for the person doing the work, not the person auditing the file
- Briefing RAMS so it is understood rather than signed
- What to do when the job changes on site, and how to record that
- Reviewing a RAMS properly, and the signs one has gone stale
How completing this course helps you
- An Acadame certificate in RAMS training
- Risk assessments and method statements that stand up to a client or an inspector
- Documentation that changes behaviour on site rather than satisfying a file
- Fewer jobs stopped because the paperwork did not match the work
- A consistent standard across everybody who writes RAMS for you
Who should attend?
Supervisors, contract and project managers, health and safety representatives and advisors, team leaders and site agents, and anybody who produces, reviews or approves risk assessments and method statements. Particularly relevant in construction, maintenance, engineering, utilities, manufacturing, logistics and facilities management.
Entry requirements. None. It assumes no previous training and it is written for the people doing the work rather than the people writing the policy.
Ready to take the next step?
Choose a delivery option, compare dates and book with confidence, or ask MB and get an answer straight away.
Awareness or qualification
When RAMS training is not enough
This course makes somebody good at producing and reviewing RAMS. For most supervisors, contract managers and site agents, that is exactly the right level and one day is the right investment.
If the person is your appointed competent person under the Management Regulations 1999, or the job advert asked for a qualification, RAMS training does not cover it. That is the NEBOSH National General Certificate, and it is a considerably bigger commitment.
The two work together. A safety lead with the NEBOSH sets the standard; a dozen supervisors who have done this course produce documentation that meets it. Training only the safety lead leaves them rewriting everybody else's paperwork.
People who write or review RAMS
This one day course. Practical, and you write a real one during it.
Site supervisors
CITB SSSTS as well, which is what most principal contractors ask for on a construction site.
Your health and safety lead
The NEBOSH National General Certificate, for the competence the whole arrangement rests on.
Course content
What you will cover
The qualification is structured around the management of health and safety and the practical application of risk assessment.
The risk assessment
- Why risk assessment is a legal duty and what suitable and sufficient means
- Identifying hazards on a specific job
- Who might be harmed, including other trades and the public
- Judging likelihood and severity honestly
- The hierarchy of control
- Recording significant findings
The method statement
- What a method statement is for, and what it is not
- Breaking a job into a safe sequence of steps
- Putting the control from the risk assessment into the step where it matters
- Plant, equipment, materials and access
- Permits, isolations and interfaces with other trades
- Emergency arrangements for this job
Using it
- Briefing RAMS so people understand rather than just sign
- Who needs to see it and when
- Handling change on site: stop, reassess, record
- Reviewing a RAMS, and the signs it has gone stale
- Common failures that get a RAMS rejected by a client
Method of assessment
How RAMS is assessed
Assessment is built into the session rather than bolted on. Your trainer checks understanding as you go and there is a short written check at the end.
Write one
You produce a risk assessment and method statement for a real job during the day. Onsite, we use one of yours, which tends to be the most useful hour of the course.
Peer review
You review somebody else's, which is where people learn what an unclear method statement actually reads like to a stranger.
Written check and certificate
A short paper covering the legal basis and the hierarchy of control, then an Acadame certificate on completion.
Ways to learn
How you can take this course
Every route covers the same accredited syllabus and the same support. Pick the one that fits how your people work.
Classroom
Tutor-led at one of our centres, with everything provided.
Ask us to open a classroom date →or ask MB nowLive online
The same tutor and the same timetable, joined from anywhere.
Ask us to open a live online date →or ask MB nowAlso available
In-company training
We run this one to order, at your place or ours.
Onsite / in-company
Run RAMS at your site
We deliver anywhere in the UK, on your dates and around your shift patterns. For six or more people it is usually cheaper per head than sending everyone to a centre, and nobody loses a day travelling.
Tell us roughly how many people and when, and we will come back with options and a price, or ask MB and get an answer straight away.
What onsite includes
- The same tutor, materials and certification as our centres
- Your venue or one we arrange near you
- Dates and start times built around your operation
- One invoice and one point of contact for the whole group
- Content examples drawn from your own workplace
RAMS FAQs
Risk Assessment and Method Statement. They are two separate documents that are almost always produced and issued together, because a client or principal contractor wants to see both what could go wrong and how the job will actually be done.
No course is named in law. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require suitable and sufficient risk assessment and competent people to carry it out, and training is how employers normally establish and evidence that competence.
Somebody who understands the work and has been trained to assess it. In practice that is usually the supervisor or contract manager closest to the job, which is exactly who this course is aimed at. RAMS written by somebody who has never seen the job read like it.
Yes, if we are onsite. Working through your own documents with your own team is the quickest way to lift the standard, and it usually turns up one template that has been quietly copied across a dozen jobs it does not fit.
Whenever the job, the site, the people or the equipment change, and not merely once a year. The course covers what a meaningful review looks like as opposed to changing the date on the front page.
Acadame. It is general awareness training rather than a regulated qualification, which is the right shape for this subject: it is built around what your people actually do and it can be adapted to your own equipment, substances and procedures. Where a regulated qualification is what you need instead, we will say so and point you at it.
Yes, anywhere in the UK, and it is usually the better option. Training on your own equipment, in your own building, with your own procedures in front of people, transfers to the job in a way a generic venue does not.
Up to twelve on a standard session. For practical subjects we will talk through numbers with you, because a room of twenty watching two people practise is not training.
From the blog
Course guides and news
The latest plain-English guides to choosing the right course, card or qualification.
Training for a team?
One contact for all your workforce training
Book this course for a group at your site or ours, roll it into a managed training plan and let us handle the scheduling, certificates and renewals.