Challenges to OHS in Australia - 2005

1. Challenges to OHS in Australia - 2005

2. Quotable Quote • “A health & safety problem can be described by statistics but cannot be understood by statistics. It can only be understood by knowing and feeling the pain, anguish, and depression and shattered hopes of the victim and of wives, husbands, parents, children, grandparents and friends…

3. Quotable Quote • …and the hope, struggle and triumph of recovery and rehabilitation in a world often unsympathetic, ignorant, unfriendly and unsupportive, only those with close experience of life-altering personal damage have this understanding"

4. Facts • Far too many people killed and seriously injured in Australia due to work • We really do not know how many • Evidence to suggest incidence of some life-altering personal damage is getting worse

5. Author’s Background • Over 30 years safety experience • Australia & overseas SMS • International Safety Benchmarking study • Wide training in safety • Wide reading of Australian and overseas’ safety publications • Career influenced by Geoff McDonald • NOT CONFIDENT HE KNOWS WHAT AN EFFECTIVE SMS LOOKS LIKE

6. Georg Christoph Licthenstein (1742-1799) • “I cannot say whether things will get better if we change, what I can say is that they must change to get better” • Safety in Australia must change to get better

7. Major Challenge 1-Absence of a scientific discipline • Several areas indicate the lack of a scientific discipline in safety • Concepts • Models • Terminology • Best example lies in the terminology “accident”

8. Accident • Implies carelessness • Inability to foresee and prevent • Personal failure • Affects how people perceive incidents and those involved

9. Accident • Community has poor understanding of why personal damage occurs • Blame the worker

10. Terminology • Use "personal damage occurrence" not "accident" • Use "life-altering personal damage" not "permanent disability"

11. Major Challenge 2- Focus on the Personal Damage Phenomenon • The single biggest problem in safety in Australia today is that we do not have a consistent, National approach to reporting, recording and analysing Class 1 personal damage.

12. Personal Damage Data Systems • Wigglesworth- “The existing data collections are neither comprehensive nor compatible. They contain serious deficiencies in definition, scope, coverage and source that impedes any form of extended analysis”

13. Classifying Personal Damage • CLASS 1 - Damage that permanently alters a persons life e.g. death, paraplegia, amputation of a leg, severe psychological damage. • CLASS 2 - Damage that temporarily alters a person’s life e.g. fractured leg that repairs with no lasting impediment. • CLASS 3 - Inconveniences a persons life (Geoff McDonald & Associates, Brisbane)

14. Effects of class 1 personal damage • Financial costs • Pain & suffering • Dislocation of life • Permanence of death • From the perspective of the damaged individual you will see all of the above. • From the perspective of the employer you see mainly the financial costs, which are about 30% of the total costs

15. Industry Commission 1995 • Estimated cost work damage to people $20 billion in 1992-1993 (excludes pain, suffering, dislocation of life, permanence of death) • 137 people per day (50,00 per year) lives permanently altered by damage from work

16. Industry Commission 1995 • Class 1 Fatal 1.5% • Class 1 Non-Fatal 80.5% • Class 2 18% • Class 3 Not costed

17. Focus on Class 1 Damage • Industry Commission 1995 • Safety is a class 1 problem • 87% of occurrences Class 2 with 18% of cost • 13% of occurrences Class 1 with 82% of cost • FOCUS ON CLASS 1 DAMAGE

18. N.O.H.S.C. Study 2004 For 2000-1 • Class 1 Fatal-3.5% of cost • Class 1 Non-Fatal-88.5% of cost • Class 2 -8% 0f cost • FOCUS ON CLASS 1

19. NOHSC 2004 • Cost of personal damage 1992-93 $82.8 billion • Class 1 represents 96.5% of cost (includes pain and suffering) • FOCUS ON CLASS 1 DAMAGE

20. What is done in safety must be based on a through knowledge of what happens in a damaging occurrence .Because the National Experience has not been collected we do not know what to do. . (Geoff McDonald & Associates, Brisbane)

21. Major Challenge 3-Process versus Content • Progress in business requires both Process and Content • Well developed safety processes in Australia • Lack of solid personal damage data leads to poor Content

22. Major Challenge 4-The Two Mandorlas • Mandorla-Italian word for almond • Describes the overlapping area of 2 circles • 2 safety mandorlas- Paradox Mandorla &Judgement Mandorla

23. Paradox Mandorlas Too Many So Rare Individual’s Experience of Work Fatality and Life-altering Personal Damage Nation’s Experience of Work Fatality and Life-altering Personal Damage Common or Shared Experience

24. Judgement Mandorla

25. Thinking / Feeling • Thinking concerned with “truth” • Feeling-“like or dislike”, • “acceptable or not acceptable” concerned with “goodness”

26. Feeling Corrupts Thinking • Feeling corrupts thinking eg. By using value laden terms • Thinking corrupts Feeling eg. By attempting to rationalise how you feel • Lack of factual information with which to think will lead to a feeling judgement • Above is very common in safety

27. Fat versus Thin • Presently Paradox Mandorla is thinand Judgement Mandorla is fat • For effective safety Paradox Mandorla needs to be fatand the Judgement Mandorla needs to be thin • For this to occur we need meaningful life-altering personal damage data

28. Facts • Far too many people killed and seriously injured in Australia due to work • We really do not know how many • Evidence to suggest incidence of some life-altering personal damage is getting worse

29. Challenges to OHS in Australia -2005 • Many dedicated people working hard • Much of what is being done has no factual basis • Urgently need to change our focus from Lost Time Injuries to Class 1 damage • WE URGENTLY NEED A NATIONAL CLASS 1 PERSONAL DAMAGE DATABASE