Mini-post: Critical risk management as imagined vs as done

How well are critical risks being managed at the human interface? I think for many this is a question that continually plays in our mind.

A couple of recent findings throw some light on this. In Sean Brady‘s review of all fatal mining and quarry accidents in Qld from 2000 – 19, they found that less than **30%** of controls implemented following a serious accident was a hard control.

That is, administrative controls were the predominant control in the majority of serious cases. For instance, in the 18/19 period 60% of all high potential incidents and 68% for serious accidents were administrative in nature.

They argued that:
“If this reporting is representative of how the industry actually responded to Serious Accidents in practice, then it is concerning. It means that a hazard, which had the demonstrated capacity to kill or require a person be admitted to hospital for treatment, was responded to with a control that was among the least effective in the hierarchy” (p38, Brady review).

Further, they found that in:

a) 45% of cases a control was used but was ineffective

b) 36% of cases the hazard was unidentified, and

c) Only a small number of events involved a bypassed or unenforced control.

Other research from Philippa (Paige) Dodshon & Maureen Hassall observed similarish trends based on the perspectives of incident investigators across industries. Namely:
·      >57% of respondents indicated that the extent of controls being present at the time of the incident was considered during the investigation
·      However, ~58% indicated that the effectiveness of the controls in use during the incident wasn’t always evaluated as part of the incident
·      ~53% indicated that absent controls (that could have been effective at preventing the event if present) were considered in only around ~53% of cases.

Although I think we need to be careful in trying to overapply these types of findings (particularly to complex high-risk work situations), I think at the least it does:
a) highlight all of the opportunities available to better learn about how high-risk work is normally navigated, inclusive of trade-offs, constraints and success factors.
b) highlight that we may invest far too much energy in improving low impact conditions at the expense of high energy/high potential conditions.

Sources:

1. Brady Haywood review: https://documents.parliament.qld.gov.au/tableOffice/TabledPapers/2020/5620T197.pdf
2. Dodshon & Hassell study: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2016.12.005
3. My summary of the Dodshon & Hassell study: https://safety177496371.wordpress.com/2021/10/19/practitioners-perspectives-on-incident-investigations/
4. The Safety of Work podcast discussing the Brady review: https://safetyofwork.com/episodes/ep16-what-can-we-learn-from-the-brady-report-cOvRWiYv
5. Link to the LinkedIn post: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/benhutchinson2_how-well-are-critical-risks-being-managed-activity-6900210363527258112-9ZQ1?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop