Environmental hazards are things around you, things within your environment which can cause harm to staffs and service users. Example of an environmental hazard includes pollution, temperature of the room, objects and other things that can be harmful to individuals. Lightening, this is a physical environmental hazard that could put service users at risk of harm. This is because elderly service users who is suffering from poor vision wold find it hard to see when moving around, which could lead to someone tripping or falling over. This hazard could also put a staff at risk of harm too, for example if a room or corridor is too dim and the career is guiding a service user around and because of the poor lighting they are unaware of the table leg or wet floor and then trip over it, not only hurting themselves but also putting/ hurting the service user, putting them at risk to as to the user may not be stable enough to stand on their own without any support or help.
It is important that in a hospital or a care home, the lightening should be set the right way to avoid unexpected falls and hazards, even though they may seem minor or its just a fall but its not because some service users are old, week and fragile that that one fall could have an impact in them. Not only lightening but room temperature as well could cause hazard to the environment. If the temperature is too high or too low, this could affect elderly service users most especially as they have become older, their immune systems have become weaker making them vulnerable to illnesses which is also hard for them to maintain their body temperature, this could also lead to over heating of the body as the service user becomes dehydrated and would start sweating if the temperature is not set to its normal degree. So in every care home or hospital central heating and windows and other sources of ventilation should be provided.
