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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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....

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?

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.

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.