Rank: New forum user
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Reasonalby Forseeable Worse Case:
Hi I am developing a training program and am looking for some (a range of e.g. basic health and safety hazards to high level risk management) examples that describe "reasonbly forseeable worse case" that will help participants better understand the concept of grading risks when using the tradional Risk assessment matrix of likelihood x consequence.
Can anyone share some examples or point to sources that would provide me with some food for thought?
Thanks in anticipation
Dipak
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Rank: Guest
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dipak
Risk assessment has always been subjective and always will be. Two or three assessors can look at the same hazard / risk and possbily all come up with different risk ratings.
It's down to what you know i.e. competence and experience
Rich
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Rank: Super forum user
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As Rich says the risk assessment process will always be subjective. The two things that I have found is that:
1. The best assessments are those which are not just the opinion of one person but a collective decision with input from many people.
2. The review process is key. You have to keep updating the assessments based on what has happened. You learn from your mistakes. That is when the risk assessment matures and becomes useful.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Agree it is important to have a number of people involved in the process, this doesn't mean that the people have the same outlook what it means is that they share their thoughts and opinions and come away with one assessment instead of a number. It aso gives ownership of the assessment that makes it more likely they will use it and the control measures
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Rank: Super forum user
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Dipak
Looking at the original question I think that you are putting the cart before the horse. Until you have done the RA you cannot establish the worse credible risk.
For example at my work place we have: chemicals (including some very nasty ones), biological agents (same level of nastiness), radioactive stuff, and etc. So fairly high hazard. Does any of this stuff give me sleepless nights? No, as the risks are controlled. The things that cause us grief are things like slips trips and falls and driving for work. Difficult to control- worst accident on our site was some tripping over a box of files that had been left out. They shattered their shoulder and there was talk of amputation when the bones refused to heal. The poor woman got away with several operations and pins holding her shoulder together.
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Rank: New forum user
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All thanks for responding so quickly. I appreciate the mechanics of risk assesment and note your points. To clarify what I am looking for are examples of RFWC that you may have come accross and which can be used to communicate the concept of what we mean by RFWC? I hope this makes sense? As you all say even experts perceptions can vary on the subject and the rational for requesting this information was to see what sort of examples the forum members have or have come across to decribe the concept of RFWC.
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Rank: Super forum user
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I suggest you do not apply the "worst case" outcome to Risk Assessment or you'll end up with a very wide potential for death!
Better to focus on the most likely outcome.
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Rank: New forum user
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thanks Ron that is why I am seeking examples practioners may have or have come across of "reasonably forseeable" worse case.
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Rank: Super forum user
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OK dipak how’s about this.
1. Employee has been working all night (9 hours) in the field away from our base
2. Rather than knock off and stay down for rest they decided they will drive home 300 miles without taking any sort of break.
3. They crash their vehicle ( ie our vehicle) into a minibus of kids
4. There is one dead employee and various injured school children
5. We get hauled over the coals for allowing the employee to drive when they were clearly out of it- even though nobody told them to drive back that night.
6. That’s my nightmare- its reasonable foreseeable and it’s a bad scenario
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Rank: Super forum user
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A Kurdziel - Your scenario could have been made far worse in its consequences if the fatigued driver had driven off a motorway onto a railway line in the path of a high speed train - as actually happened at Great Heck near Selby in North Yorkshire in February 2001. From a quick internet search the toll of that disaster was 10 deaths and 82 serious injuries.
Also, some forum users might be interested to google Quintinshill Railway Disaster regarding the causes of the disaster which occurred near Gretna Green in May 1915. 230 people were killed and 246 were injured, mostly Scottish soldiers en route to fight in WW1.
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Rank: Super forum user
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As Ron suggests, 'worse (or is it worst?) case' is probably not the best term but I know what you mean - I think. Here is a worse case - coming into contact with electricity. Now anything from 110V upwards can kill, however the chances are most people will survive a wack from an electrical source - although their eyes will light up! Whenever I have done an RA for contact with electricity I have always put the outcome as death or 5 in a 5x5 matrix. Purely because the potential for a fatality is so great that death seems 'reasonably foreseeable'.
There are many other examples of course, eg being struck by a moving train, falling from a significant height, etc. They may not lead to a fatality in practice but there is every chance they will cause death.
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Rank: Forum user
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I think railways have come a long way since the days of gas lit stock and lack of interlocking controls on signalling equiment.
The interface between the road user and the railway (usually at level crossings) is probably the most likely hazard nowadays, though terrorsm on the public transport system probably has the greatest consequence.
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Rank: Super forum user
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In a retail training session I have used the comparison of slips and fire: high probability of a RIDDOR major from a slip (unrealistic to anticipate a fatal) v low probability of multiple fatality.
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Rank: Super forum user
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I think I know what the poster means....
He means this - when assessing risk, don't just think worse case and score
for example
Person trips on trailing cable - could hit head on corner of desk and die. (so 5 for outcome)
tipex - swallows whole bottle - chokes and dies :) (I could go with silly examples but you get the idea)
If we did this for every hazard they would all score 5 for consequence, this isn;t useful
However - the most likely worst outcome is maybe a broken wrist... or major injury under RIDDOR
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Rank: Super forum user
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Dipak
I think you are making an entirely valid comment. The problem is most people when carry out risk assessment want consider only one outcome, and hence the suggestion you only ask for "most likely outcome." I believe this misses the point of risk assessment.
For any scenario there will be a range of potential outcomes ranging from relatively minor through to major. But which represents the highest risk? To determine this you need to factor in the likelihood. Sometime the lowest consequence is highest risk because it is very likely. Sometimes it is the highest consequence even though the likelihood is low.
To be honest, none of this makes any sense until you understand why you are assessing risk in the first place. There are several possibilities. The first is to determine if the risk of an activity is tolerable/acceptable. It may that the risk associated with the most likely outcome is acceptable, but the risk associated with minor consequence high likelihood or high consequence low likelihood outcomes is greater and falls outside of your range of tolerability.
The other use of risk assessment is to make sure you focus your limited efforts and resources where the greatest benefit can be achieved. In this case looking at the most likely outcome can lead to you missing the need to address risks associated with minor or high consequence events.
With regard to post #5 from A Kurdziel. This actually highlights the importance of considering risks for all possible outcomes and not the most likely. The things that "causes us grief" may actually have very little baring on risk, especially when major hazards are involved. BP Texas City had an excellent safety record, but it was clear after the fire that killed 15 people that they were not managing the risks associated with high consequence events. In other words, they had done well at managing low consequence high likelihood events (the ones that routinely cause grief) at the expense of high consequence low likelihood events. It may be the case that they were not having sleepless nights because they felt the risks of these were being managed.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Dipak
Have you looked at the HSE web site and their section on Risk Assessment.
I am one of those people who does not like risk matrix, I firmly believe that if you identify a significant hazard then you must put in controls to minimise the potential risk.
As Alexandra says"Simples"
Joking aside I think we try and complicate the Risk Assessment process - at the end of the day who is the risk assessment produced for? The person doing the job or some pen pusher who wants to tick a box.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Has anyone actually read the question :)
Maybe I got it wrong but I thought it was a technical question around the term 'Reasonably Foreseeable Worse Case'
Not a question about to how to do a risk assessment or assess risk....
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But what is risk asessment? is it to measure level of outcome or Level of Risk
I think Our System of measuring by probability X likelihood is flawed as it doesnt take into account - The number of people exposed or the maximum probable loss and to me thats why its so subjective as to what is worst case scenario! Well that my opinion.
If you take One person falls off high rise building (NHS maintenance person) and gets killed then thats one person X all costs which could equal hypotheticallly £2 million pounds all told. Whereas 12,000 nurses with bad backs who claim could cost the NHS Trust £15 Million pounds - so which is the worst case scenario to the company forgetting the Nhs is supposed to help health and not ruin it!
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Rank: Super forum user
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steveeckersley wrote:But what is risk asessment? is it to measure level of outcome or Level of Risk
I think Our System of measuring by probability X likelihood is flawed as it doesnt take into account - The number of people exposed or the maximum probable loss and to me thats why its so subjective as to what is worst case scenario! Well that my opinion.
If you take One person falls off high rise building (NHS maintenance person) and gets killed then thats one person X all costs which could equal hypotheticallly £2 million pounds all told. Whereas 12,000 nurses with bad backs who claim could cost the NHS Trust £15 Million pounds - so which is the worst case scenario to the company forgetting the Nhs is supposed to help health and not ruin it!
yeah but I don't think that's the question...
RA - nurse manual handling - I would not score outcome as death - however I can foresee it!!! (the most foreseeable outcome is a back injury (>7day RIDDOR)
I would however score likelihood as high - as per above explanations
The question revolves around choosing an appropriate score for outcome - and not scoring all as 5... well that was my interpretation.
I'm outnumbered though - so might well be wrong?
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Rank: Super forum user
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Here is an example of an exercise that could be used for training. You have some money to spend on reducing the risk of back pain in a medical department. Where do you spend it?
Workers in the department include:
* Office staff - sit at desks all day
* Doctors - some office work plus ward rounds
* Nurses - do some simple manual handling
* Porters - do most of the manual handling
Think about the potential for any of these to suffer back pain in a year. The outcomes include:
* None
* Minor discomfort that soon goes and does not affect work
* Pain that restricts work but does not require time off
* Lost time
* Permanent injury
* Life threatening injury
You want to know which represents the highest risk. Plot the likelihood of each potential outcome against their annual likelihood for an individual working in each of the different roles. You will need to do this 24 times to cover each of the 6 potential outcomes for each of the 4 job roles.
For training purposes you can fix the likelihood data to highlight the possibility that the result may not be obvious. For example:
* No porters have ever experienced a life threatening injury within the department. But this on its own does not mean it is not possible. Data from a larger population (i.e. whole medical industry) may show that it does happen and so this would be your reasonably foreseeable worst case.
* Conversely, a nurse may have experienced a permanent injury in the previous year. But this only shows it is possible and not necessarily likely (i.e. bad luck last year).
* Office workers may not experience any lost time but are all complaining about back pain. This affecting moral and creating a hidden cost to the organisation so that the risk from this minor outcome is actually greater than from the greater harm outcomes.
I think this could create quite a good training exercise including the ability to talk about reasonably foreseeable worst case
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Rank: Super forum user
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Woohoo, there is a distinct possibility here that we H&S professionals may be becoming more business-aware by recognising that risk means different things to different people.
Many of us will routinely look at risk as relating to harmed individuals and that is what we are legally obliged to do. Fewer will consider the exposure to the organisation from losing the services of individuals i.e. risk assessment within its broader risk management sense.
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Rank: Super forum user
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david b - I guess that quite a number of us have long known that 'risk' means different things to different people. For example, when I first heard/read about insurers putting something 'on risk' I queried this expression. In the insurance world it apparently means that an insurer has agreed to provide financial cover against adverse outcomes like loss, damage or related claims for specific items or defined activities over a specific period of time.
Also, though risk management as required by OS&H legislation rightly focuses on preventing/minimising harm to people, I think that more than a few of us will additionally have routinely advised employers and clients about controlling the risk of damage or loss to equipment and buildings, etc., as well as non-physical risks such as enforcement action, adverse publicity and loss of reputation.
p.s. Who is Woohoo? I can't see any mention of his or perhaps her name earlier in this thread?!!! :-)
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Rank: New forum user
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All thanks very much for your input on my question. It clearly shows that even amongst professionals there are inconsistencies and variations in interpreting RFWC.
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