Risk management strategies There are four different strategies to managing risk. These are:

Mitigate: this involves seeking to control the risk and bring it to a level that is deemed acceptable. This may be by attempting to reduce the probability of occurrence or the severity of the outcome

Avoid: this involves identifying that the risk exists and avoiding all actions that would give rise to this risk. For example, if there was a concern over the risks associated with a delivery service, it might be decided to not offer a delivery service

Transfer: this involves insuring against the risk. Pharmacies are required to carry insurance and pharmacy owners may want to take out extra insurance to cover specific issues where they feel the risks exist and may not be adequately managed

Accept: this involves acknowledging that the risk exists but no action is taken to either avoid, transfer or mitigate the risk. For example, there may be a very low probability that all of a pharmacy’s vehicles will break down on the same day. This risk won’t be mitigated by ensuring there is another, it may not be possible to avoid and insuring against it might not be suitable. Therefore, the risk is accepted. Organisations may categorise low, medium and high risk differently and so choosing which strategy to use is often decided by an organisation’s policy on risk management.