Health and safety Safe working practices — AQA A-Level Design and Technology: Product Design
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Health and safety Safe working practices explained
Health and safety procedures are the practical controls a manufacturer builds into making a product so that people are not harmed.
Read the full explanation
For a product, the designer identifies hazards across its life: sharp edges, trapped fingers, electrical risk, hot surfaces, chemical finishes and heavy lifting. For manufacturing, procedures include risk assessment before work starts, guarding on machines, correct personal protective equipment, safe storage of adhesives and solvents, dust and fume extraction, clear walkways, isolation and lock-off before maintenance, and training so each operator knows the safe method. Explain the procedure by naming the hazard, the control that removes or reduces it, and who acts. For example, a workshop cutting MDF uses local exhaust ventilation plus a face mask because fine dust is inhaled; a jig keeps hands away from the blade.
Your focus
- Explain health and safety procedures for a named product and its manufacture, linking each hazard to a control.
- Describe workshop controls such as guarding, extraction, safe storage and lock-off, and state their purpose.
- Evaluate the relative effectiveness of controls using the hierarchy of control.
Health and safety Safe working practices exam tips
Marking Points
- Identifies hazards arising from a named product across its life, such as sharp edges, electrical risk, hot surfaces or chemical finishes, and links each to a control.
- Explains manufacturing procedures such as risk assessment, machine guarding, dust and fume extraction, safe chemical storage and housekeeping, stating what the control does.
- Describes the role of training and supervision so operators follow the safe method, and the use of personal protective equipment as a lower-level control.
- Explains isolation and lock-off before maintenance or blade changes, and clear walkways and signage to control movement around the workshop.
- Evaluates the hierarchy of control, arguing that eliminating a hazard or guarding a machine is more reliable than relying on protective equipment alone.
- Applies procedures to a concrete example, such as dust extraction and a push-stick or jig when cutting MDF, explaining how each reduces a specific risk.
Examiner Tips
- 💡Structure the answer by hazard, then control, then who carries it out, so each procedure is explained rather than named.
- 💡Use one detailed worked example, such as cutting MDF with extraction and a jig, to show understanding in context.
- 💡Finish with a judgement on which controls are most effective, referring to the hierarchy of control, to reach the higher marks.
Common Mistakes
- Listing personal protective equipment as the first or only control. Correction: explain that elimination, substitution and guarding reduce risk at source, and PPE is a last line of defence.
- Describing a hazard without a control, or a control without the hazard it addresses. Correction: pair each hazard with the specific procedure that removes or reduces it.
- Treating health and safety as only a factory issue. Correction: cover the product itself, including foreseeable misuse, sharp edges and electrical safety in use.
- Assuming a risk assessment is a one-off document. Correction: explain that it is reviewed when the process, materials or people change.