Posted By Phil Douglas
Patrick
My comments assume you mean risk management as a profession, which is very different to H&S. H&S is just one element of risk management related to legal compliance.
There are no great secrets about risk management; people often describe it as the pessimistic application of recognised business principles and planning methodologies. The individual elements of risk management are in themselves very simple, not a deal of difference between the HSE five steps.
Improved corporate governance has been a feature of the last decade. Reports from the Cadbury committee, Hampel committee, Rutteman, Nolan and Turnbull, helped form a body of guidance on corporate governance, including risk management and internal control. I would imagine that these documents would relate to your issue. (search on the Webb, you will find them)
So what about five key areas for improvement? Try these:
· Financial
· Business
· Compliance
· Operational
If you look to Turnbull and general risk management you will find specific things under the above headings that need to be considered.
The NHS has a boatload of risks, probably many unmanaged. Recent TV reports about some trusts, give an impression that even where issues are identified, they remain unmanaged.
But just take financial for a moment, looking at Liquidity risk, risk, • Going concern problems, •Credit risk, • Interest risk, •High cost of capital, • types of fraud, • Miss- statement risk related to financial info, • Breakdown of accounting systems, • Unrecorded liabilities, • Unreliable accounting records.
Make improvements to the above, that work and even without further cash injections from the Government, you maximise the money you do get.
I realise that these are not health, examples, but if you have not worked in the NHS field, then it would be difficult to give specific examples, it may be best to demonstrate a good knowledge of the basic principles of risk management, as like H&S management, the principles can be taken into any workplace and applied. Like many of us Safety Practitioners do, when we move from industry to industry.
Phil MIOSH RSP