Training and assessing non-technical skills: A practical guide

Providing a practical guide to the training and assessment of non-technical skills within high-risk industries, this book will be of direct interest to safety and training professionals working within aviation, healthcare, rail, maritime, and other high-risk industries. Currently, each of these industries are working to integrate non-technical skills into their training and certification processes, particularly in light of increasing international regulation in this area. However, there is no definitive guidance to assist practitioners within these areas with the design of effective non-technical skills training and assessment programs. This book sets out to fully meet this need. It has been designed as a practically focussed companion to the 2008 book Safety at the Sharp End by Flin, O'Connor and Crichton. While Safety at the Sharp End provides the definitive exploration of the need for non-technical skills training, and examines in detail the main components of non-technical skills as they relate to safe operations, the text does not focus on the "nuts and bolts" of designing training and assessment programs. To this end, Training and Assessing Non-Technical Skills: A Practical Guide provides an extension of this work and a fitting companion text

Fatigue management in healthcare: It is a risky business

In this issue, McClelland et al. provide data on self-reported fatigue in a large cohort (n = 3847) of anaesthetic consultants and paediatric intensivists in the UK and Republic of Ireland [1]. Although much has been written on fatigue in junior doctors and trainees, this is one of the first studies to report systematically on working time arrangements and self-reported fatigue and well-being in senior medical staff

Fatigue management in practice – It's just good teamwork

An important review was published in this issue of the journal. The review by Banks et al. [1] is important for several reasons. Critically, it reviews a rapidly emerging area of sleep and fatigue science. Moreover, it emphasises the critical perspective that fatigue is much more than individual impairment. The review underlines the need to understand fatigue in a much broader context, that of individuals working as teams, and as part of larger organisational systems of work

Fatigue proofing

Since World \Var II we have seen an increasing focus on fatigue as a source of error and a threat to operational safety in a variety of industries, including transport, emergency services, health care, and others. There is a significant extant literature documenting both the causes and effects of fatigue. In brief, prior sleep-wake behavior, time-of-day, and workload are key factors determining the level of fatigue experienced by the individual worker. Slowed cognitive processing and impaired attentional and emotional control all c:ombine to increase the likelihood of task-related errors and thereby compromise judgement, decision making, and ultimately workplace safety

Flight hours and flight crew performance in commercial aviation

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relationship between a pilot's flight hours and their performance. BACKGROUND: There is current debate in the aviation industry on the minimum hours required for first officers to gain before they can fly for an airline. Despite years of pilot training and licensing, there are very little data available to determine whether or not pilot performance varies as a function of total hours within an airline environment. METHOD: Flight crew performance was measured during 287 sectors of normal operations against a set of technical and nontechnical measurements. Flightcrew were grouped into a categorical variable which defined low and high experience groups according to industry accepted thresholds. RESULTS: There were no statistically significant differences between experience groups for First Officers or Captains against the set of technical measures; however, there were minor differences with regard to nontechnical measures as a function of crew composition. There was also a difference in automation use, with First Officers with less than 1500 h keeping the autopilot engaged until a significantly lower altitude. DISCUSSION: Despite on-going debate that low-hour First Officers are not as capable as their more experienced colleagues, we found no evidence of this in our study

Experience competence or syllabus?: Influences on flight hours at licensing of commercial pilots

Competency-based training is a training philosophy that has become well established in many countries around the world, predominately in the vocational education and training sector. In some of these countries, the concept has been extended to include aviation flight training. This is the case in Australia, which introduced the requirement for competency-based training in aviation in 1999 through the Civil Aviation Safety Authority. This article gives a brief outline of the current status of flight training in Australian aviation and also highlights some of the difficulties facing flight training organizations in introducing a competency-based training system into a tightly regulated aviation industry, in particular the conflict between the philosophy behind competency-based training and the reality of meeting regulatory minimums and airline syllabus requirements

How much sleep do you need? A comprehensive review of fatigue related impairment and the capacity to work or drive safely

In developed countries, deaths attributable to driving or working while intoxicated have steadily declined over recent decades. In part, this has been due to (a) public education programs about the risks and (b) the deterrence value associated with penalties and prosecutions based on an individual being ‘deemed impaired’ if they exceed a proscribed level of blood alcohol or drug concentration while driving/working. In contrast, the relative proportion of fatigue-related accidents have remained stubbornly high despite significant public and workplace education. As such, it may be useful to introduce the legal principle of ‘deemed impaired’ with respect to fatigue and/or sleep loss. A comprehensive review of the impairment and accident literature was performed, including 44 relevant publications. Findings from this review suggests that a driver or worker might reasonably be ‘deemed impaired’ once the amount of sleep falls below five hours in the prior 24. Building on the legal principles first outlined in recent New Jersey legislation (Maggie's Law), this review argues that an individual can reasonably be ‘deemed impaired’ based on prior sleep wake behaviour. In Maggie's Law, a driver can be indirectly ‘deemed impaired’ if they have not slept in the prior 24 h. Based on the extant literature, we argue that, relative to drug and alcohol intoxication, this may be overly conservative. While roadside measurement of fatigue and prior sleep-wake behavior is not yet possible, we suggest that public education programs should provide specific guidance on the amount of sleep required and that post-accident forensic examination of prior sleep wake behaviours may help the community to determine unsafe behaviours and liability more objectively than is currently the case. © 2020 Elsevier Lt

What people really think about safety around horses: The relationship between risk perception, values and safety behaviours

The equestrian industry reports high rates of serious injuries, illness and fatalities when compared to other high-risk sports and work environments. To address these ongoing safety concerns, a greater understanding of the relationship between human risk perception, values and safety behaviours is required. This paper presents results from an international survey that explored relationships between a respondents’ willingness to take risk during daily activities along with, their perceptions of risk and behaviours during horse-related interactions. Respondents’ comments around risk management principles and safety-first inspirations were also analysed. We examined what humans think about hazardous situations or activities and how they managed risk with suitable controls. Analysis identified three important findings. First, safe behaviours around horses were associated with safety training (formal and/or informal). Second, unsafe behaviours around horses were associated with higher levels of equestrian experience as well as income from horse-related work. Finally, findings revealed a general acceptance of danger and imminent injury during horse interactions. This may explain why some respondents de-emphasised or ‘talked-down’ the importance of safety-first principles. In this paper we predominantly reported quantitative findings of respondents self-reported safety behaviours, general and horse-related risk perceptions despite injury or illness. We discussed the benefits of improved safety-first principles like training, risk assessments, rider-horse match with enriched safety communications to enhance risk-mitigation during human–horse interactions. © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Development of a Human Factors Approach to Equine-Related Human Accident Analysis, and Preliminarily Evaluation with Simulated Incidents

Accident analysis frameworks such as Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) are widely used in high-risk industries to determine risk mitigation strategies. In comparison, equestrianism which is classified high-risk due to human-horse interactions at work, sport, and social activities, rarely utilizes accident analysis. This study developed and tested the validity and inter-rater reliability of an equestrian-specific accident analysis framework, that included elements of human error, horse risk factors, and environmental factors. The study involved three coders who independently classified 10 simulated horse-related human accident reports with the novel Human Factors Analysis and Classification System-Equestrianism (HFACS-Eq) framework. The results demonstrated that the HFACS-Eq framework achieved moderately reliable to reliable coding percentage agreement. In addition, substantial to reliable agreement was achieved for HFACS-Eq nominal category and nano-codes levels. This study is the first step towards an equestrian industry-specific, accident analysis framework to improve industry safety. Elimination of possible bias and validation with real incident data are required before the wider application of the framework can be recommended. The study highlights organizational and procedural failures, segregating the horse as a contributing factor as well as the environment in which the human acts or makes decisions informing risk

Sports horse welfare and social licence to operate: Informing communication strategies

Presentation on Social Licence to Operate, based on mixed-method study, and how it may inform communication strategies