Posted By John T
Charles,

I tried to open up your links to read the article without success, can you re post the link as I would like to read the article before I jump in with both feet by responding to the very subjective heading.

Posted By Charles Robinson Tech IOSH
pleased you got the link it is rather long and runs off the page It took me quite some time to find the full report

Posted By John Murgatroyd
Yes, I too am fed-up with towering intellects who spend their time working-out ways to blow the world up, and by doing so tell the ones who want to do it, how to do it.
Another case of an intelligent idiot too stupid and full of his own importance to realise that keeping his mouth shut, and his pen still, would be far better for our health and safety.

Posted By Pete48


I have just read the summary found at the reference given. I consider this to be an important bit of research that is anything but alarmist. The interpretation given by Charles in starting this thread does not appear to be the objective or conclusion of the report. The authors are from respected sources of soundly based research in the area of H&S. (Glasgow and Loughborough)
There are two quotes form the report that give the outline and background that commissioned this work. Such research is essential to our understanding of complex matters and is neither determined by or is a response to matters alluded to by other contributors to this thread. In particular making personal remarks seems totally inappropriate as a response.

For those that have not read the report the abstract is as follows.
“The purpose of this paper is to stimulate a public debate about the consequences of a terrorist attack upon a hospital complex. The intention is to avoid what the 9/11 Commission calls the ‘failure of imagination’ that left society vulnerable to attack in 2001. The scenario that we generate is fictional.”
And further into the report we find the following statement
“This scenario is a work of fiction. It can, therefore, be argued that previous paragraphs are unnecessarily alarmist. Healthcare providers have more immediate concerns than a nebulous terrorist threat. However, the intention here is to avoid the ‘failures of imagination’ that leads to systemic vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure.”

From my own experience I can relate this “failure of imagination” to disasters such as the Kings Cross Fire on LU so it is not an ephemeral academic ivory tower creation. It is a very real issue.
The key conclusions are a challenge to the currently accepted standards of emergency response. A conclusion that appears on a first reading to have some merit or, at the very least, to warrant further detailed examination and review.

How much better if we as a body of professional safety people could debate the conclusions of this research instead of rushing to condemn it and its authors?

Posted By John Murgatroyd
I'm sorry ?
So, in what way would a risk assessment of two aircraft being flown into two buildings at near the same time have helped ?
Would it have helped prevent the destruction of said buildings ? (the failure mode of each was different although the cause was the same)
As for the underground bombs....in what way could the scenario have been prevented by the usual h&s routines ?
Of course, if wqe now have an incident at a hospital the guy will rush into print stating that if his advice (etc) had been followed......