RAMS is the trade's shorthand for a risk assessment and method statement supplied together, usually because a client, a principal contractor or a procurement portal has asked for them before work can start. The acronym is not in the regulations. It is a real and useful convention nonetheless, because the two documents answer different questions and neither is much use alone: one says what could go wrong and what is being done about it, the other says how the job will actually be carried out.
The two halves, and the different questions they answer
The risk assessment identifies hazards, who might be harmed and how, and the controls in place and still needed. The method statement describes the sequence of work: what happens first, with what equipment, by how many people with what competence, and what has to be in place before each stage begins. Read together they let a third party see both that you understood the risk and that your plan for the work reflects it. Read separately, a risk assessment can be generic and a method statement can be optimistic, and both are common.
Why they are asked for, and by whom
They are almost always requested by someone who carries a duty of their own: a principal contractor coordinating several trades, a client with premises to protect, a facilities manager letting a contractor into a live building. That is worth understanding because it tells you what a good pack looks like from the other side: specific to this job at this site, not a company-wide document with the client's name pasted at the top. The person receiving it is trying to assess whether your work will make their site less safe.
Site-specific is the whole quality bar
The single distinguishing feature of a RAMS pack that survives review is that it could not be about any other job. It names the site, the access, the interfaces with other trades, the isolation points, the hours, the people. Generic packs are recognised instantly by anyone who reads them for a living, and being asked to resubmit is the good outcome; the bad one is being accepted and then being the contractor whose paperwork is read after an incident.
The pack is a record, not an email attachment
Most firms lose RAMS not by writing them badly but by never being able to find the version that was actually issued for a job. Keeping the pack against the site and the job, with the version and the date it was sent, is what makes it evidence later. The free risk assessment form worksheet on this site prices the assessment half of that work, including the reissues that a change forces.
Questions people ask about rams meaning
What does RAMS stand for in health and safety?
Risk assessment and method statement. It is a trade convention rather than a legal term, and what a client is asking for when they ask for RAMS is a pack that shows both your assessment of the risks and your plan for carrying out the work safely.
Is a RAMS a legal requirement?
The pack as a named thing is not; the parts are. The duty to assess risks suitably and sufficiently is a legal one, and in construction the duties around planning and managing work bring the method statement into the same territory. In practice a client can make supplying RAMS a condition of the contract whether or not any regulation names them.
What is the difference between RAMS and a risk assessment?
The risk assessment is one half of RAMS. The other half, the method statement, describes how the work will be done, in sequence, with the resources and precautions for each stage. A risk assessment on its own tells a client what you think the hazards are but not what you plan to do on their site.