AGCC Business Bulletin October 2020 – David Jamieson’s ‘A word of advice’

Area of expertise:

We work with our customers to help them better understand and manage the risks of major accidents within their operations in a bid to prevent these occurring and continually improve the safety of the industry. We offer three complementary services: process safety engineering support, a range of tailored and on-demand training courses; and Bowtie Master – our online software package which allows customers to visualise their risks and communicate them with their team.

What should people know:

Operators devote a lot of effort to the prevention of major accidents and, fortunately, these events are very rare. However, over the last three years, 30% of HSE offshore inspections have consistently scored either poor or very poor. This could be interpreted as a sign that a major accident may be around the corner and therefore more could be done to comply with offshore safety regulations and improve safety.

What’s the biggest mistake companies make?

A lot of great work is already going on but there is definitely more that we can do. A common mistake is the failure to learn lessons from incidents, even those incidents which seem minor. Many investigations into major accidents find that there were clear warning signs that were missed or ignored. Another mistake is not engaging the workforce and listening to their input. Positive workforce engagement is to the benefit of everyone.

What’s your top tip?

Nobody deliberately acts unsafely. It’s incumbent on all of us to make safe working practices as straightforward as possible and to understand our risks. The sharing of ‘bad news’ should be encouraged as part of a physiologically safe culture, where everyone feels they can speak up without fear of negative consequences.