Using AI to write risk assessments and method statements (RAMS): what's OK and what isn't

A chat tool can sort your notes into headings. It cannot decide how you will stop someone falling, and it cannot know that the landing is rotten. A risk assessment or a method statement that came only from a generic prompt is a story about a job you have not looked at. Clients ask for RAMS because they want the job in front of them, not a tidy PDF about plastering in general.

Shaun, 20+ years in UK construction, treats the paper as the record of decisions he has already made on site. We search the AI world every week so you don't have to. The rules below are the ones HSE publishes. Read them on the HSE site if the job is unusual, high, or involves demolition.

What you are actually writing

People say RAMS and mean two things stapled together.

A risk assessment is the thinking: what could hurt someone, who, how badly, and what you are doing about it. HSE's short guide (opens in a new tab) splits that into five steps: identify the hazards, assess the risks, control the risks, record your findings, and review the controls. You can do it yourself or appoint a competent person to help you.

A method statement is the sequence: how this job will be done, in an order that keeps those controls in place. HSE's construction administration page (opens in a new tab) says method statements are not required by law for every task. They are still the usual way to plan higher-risk, complex, or unusual work, and to tell the people doing the work what the precautions are. The same page says the arrangements for demolition, dismantling, or structural alteration must be recorded in writing before the work begins. That record is usually a method statement drawn from the risk assessment.

If the site has more than one contractor, the principal contractor prepares the construction phase plan. If you are the only contractor, that plan is yours. It has to be in place before the construction phase begins. HSE sets that out on its planning page (opens in a new tab). A chat tool does not take that duty off you.

When the law says write it down

HSE says (opens in a new tab) that if you employ 5 or more people, you must record the significant findings: the hazards, who might be harmed and how, and what you are doing to control the risks. HSE's health and safety made simple (opens in a new tab) guide says that if you have fewer than five employees you do not have to write the assessment down, and that keeping a record is still good practice.

A domestic customer might not ask for the paper. A principal contractor often will. They want this address and this method. A sheet that says "wear PPE" and never mentions the stairwell is not that paper. HSE also says not to rely on paperwork as the main control. If the method on the sheet is not the method on site, the sheet is a problem, not a shield.

What a chat tool is fit for

Use it after you have walked the job, not instead of the walk.

Write the notes yourself first, in rough lines:

• the address, and where on the property the work is
• who else is around: the customer, other trades, the public, a child in the house
• access: stairs, loft hatch, scaffold, a pavement
• what you saw that changes the job: dust, live cables, rot, a busy road, work at height
• the gear you will actually bring, and the gear you will not
• the order you intend to work in
• what you will do if that order has to change

Then ask the tool to put those notes under headings. Tell it not to add controls you did not mention. A blank is safer than a sentence about a harness you do not own.

Turn these site notes into headings for a risk assessment. UK English. Do not add hazards, people, or controls I did not write. If a control is missing for a hazard I did mention, write [missing: what I will do about this] and stop. Do not invent PPE, permits, or qualifications.

Address and where on site: [notes]
Who else is affected: [notes]
What I saw: [notes]
Order of work: [notes]
Gear I will bring: [notes]
What I will do if the plan changes: [notes]

Read every line against your notes. If a control appeared that you did not type, delete it. Then fill the blanks yourself, from how you will actually do the work. That fill-in is the assessment. The headings were only the filing.

What it must not do

Do not ask it to "write a RAMS for plastering a landing" with no notes. You will get a generic landing that is not your landing. Do not ask it to sign the sheet, name a competent person, or state that the job meets CDM. It has not seen the job, and it is not the person responsible.

Do not let it pick the method. "Use a tower" or "work off a ladder" is a decision about this stair, this duration, and the kit you have. HSE's construction pages treat work at height as something you assess and plan. The choice of access is yours.

Do not paste a customer's health details into the prompt to justify a control. "The occupier is frail and cannot leave the room" can be written as "occupier will remain in the house; keep a clear route and control dust" without the medical story.

If the work is demolition, dismantling, or structural alteration, the written arrangements have to exist before you start, and they have to match the structure in front of you. A generic prompt will not survey a wall. If you are not competent to decide that method, the tool does not make you competent. Get someone who is, and use their sequence. HSE says alteration, demolition, and dismantling must be planned and carried out by competent people.

A method statement from your sequence, not from a template

Once the controls are yours, you can ask for the sequence in plain lines the people on the job can follow. Give it your order. Tell it not to reorder the job into a "standard" sequence.

Write a short method statement from this sequence. UK English. Keep my order. Do not add steps, plant, or precautions that are not in the notes. If a step has no precaution next to it, write [missing: precaution] under that step.

Job: [what and where]
Sequence and the precaution for each step:
[paste your own numbered list]
Who does the work: [names or roles you actually have]
What we do if we have to stop: [your words]

HSE says a method statement need only be long enough to tell the people doing the work what is required. A sketch often beats another paragraph. If the job is like the last one but the landing, the family, or the access has changed, revise it. Do not reuse yesterday's PDF because the heading looks the same.

Check the draft against the notes

This last prompt is a comparison, not a new RAMS. It is how you catch a control that crept in.

Compare this draft to my notes. UK English. Do not rewrite the draft.

List every hazard, person, control, or step that is in the draft and not in the notes. List every note that the draft dropped. Do not decide whether the job is safe.

Notes:
[paste]

Draft:
[paste]

Anything on the first list comes out, unless you meant it and left it out of the notes by mistake. Anything on the second list goes back in, in your words.

Walk the job with the sheet before you start. If the access is not what you wrote down, stop and change the sheet. HSE says you should review the controls when the workplace changes, and after a problem or a near miss. Update the record when you change the controls.

Paperwork that sits next to the RAMS

Your task sheet does not replace the construction phase plan. Ask the principal contractor, if there is one, what they want filed. Specific hazards have their own assessments. HSE lists work at height, hazardous substances, manual handling, noise, vibration, and lead as examples where the regulations say more. Read the HSE page for that hazard. Do not ask a chat tool to turn the regulations into a certificate.

Keep the finished sheet with the job, in the same place you keep the quote. The chat history is not the record a principal contractor or an inspector will ask for.

The UK Trades AI Prompt Pack is free when you sign up to the weekly email: prompts for quotes, chasing payment, tax admin, and customers. It is not a RAMS pack. The signup is on the home page.