Safety / Organisational Climate

Current Projects

Safety culture in air traffic control

Project leads: Dr Kathryn Mearns and Christianne Laing E-mail: k.mearns@abdn.ac.uk - Tel: 01224-273217

Funded by Eurocontrol, this is a collaborative project (with Boeing Madrid et al) to assess safety culture in air traffic control centres.

System strengths and weaknesses in surgery

Project leads: Dr Steven Yule and Jill Wilkinson. E-mail: g.wilkinson@abdn.ac.uk - Tel: 01224-273647

Funded by the Royal College of Surgeons, we are collecting data from major colo-rectal surgical cases to devise a framework for measuring systems failures in surgery. These are failures which are embedded in the system (eg, organisational factors), and can potentially lead to the occurrence of errors during an operation. We will conduct a minute by minute account of cases, and will record interactions between the surgeon and the rest of the team. The condition and diagnosis of the patient will also be taken into account as well as the level of training and experience of all team members. From these data we will devise a framework for measuring systems failures in surgery.

Patient safety measurement issues: What are reliable and valid outcomes and their underlying key processes?

Project leads: Prof Rhona Flin and Dr Jeanette Jackson. E-mail: j.jackson@abdn.ac.uk - Tel: 01224-272247

Funded by the Scottish Funding Council (2007-11), this project will identify methods of measuring patient safety outcomes and their underlying key processes within and across hospitals.

Safety climate in Scottish hospitals

Cakil Sarac, School of Psychology. E-mail: cakilsarac@abdn.ac.uk - Tel: 01224-273213

This PhD project is funded by the Scottish Funding Council (2007-10). This project focuses on safety climate in healthcare. A literature review was conducted on safety climate in healthcare post 2004 which showed that different measures have been adopted to investigate hospital safety climate and to measure patient and worker safety outcomes. There is evidence to suggest that safety climate dimensions within an organisation have direct and/or indirect effects on safety outcomes both for patients and workers. Therefore, it is important to measure the current level of the relevant cultural factors in the workplace, before designing any interventions to produce a change in culture. The main aims of this study is to measure the safety climate within Scottish acute hospitals, test the psychometric properties and the suitability of the Hospital Survey on Patient Safety Culture (HSOPSC) questionnaire for a Scottish sample, and to investigate the relationships between safety climate and, patient and worker safety outcomes within Scottish acute hospitals, which would enable the development of a theoretical model.

Completed Projects

Organisational culture change in NHS Trusts: Creating safe places for staff and patients (Senior Leadership and Safety)

Project leads: Prof Lorna McKee (Health Services Research Unit), Prof Rhona Flin and Dr Steven Yule (School of Psychology). E-mail: l.mckee@abdn.ac.uk
www.abdn.ac.uk/hsru/UDOCC_safeplaces.shtml

The organisational antecedents of individual safety behaviour in the U.K. offshore oil and gas industry

Dr Robin Bryden, School of Psychology, email: R.Bryden@shell.com

This PhD project was sponsored by Shell Expro and the University of Aberdeen, based on assessing and managing safety with reference to violations, safety climate and management of ffshore installations.

Factoring the human into safety: Translating research into practice Joint HSE/ Oil Industry Project Phase 3 (1998-2000)

Dr Kathryn Mearns, Prof Rhona Flin, Rachael Gordon, Dr Paul O'Connor & Sean Whitaker, School of Psychology, email: k.mearns@abdn.ac.uk - Tel: 01224-273217 or email: r.flin@abdn.ac.uk - Tel: 1224-272341

Sponsored by: Agip; AMEC; AOC/Brown & Root; BP; Coflexip Stena; Conoco; Elf; Health & Safety Executive (OSD); Oryx; Salamis; Sedco Forex; Shell; Texaco; Total.The scope of work outlined in his 2 year project had the following components:

Investigating the human factors causes of accidents (HFIT)

Dr Rachael Gordon, School of Psychology, email: k.mearns@abdn.ac.uk - Tel: 01224-273217

The contract was funded by the UK Health and Safety Executive and 5 oil service and operating companies and was based on offshore oil installations in the UK sector of the North Sea. The project was divided into two parts, the first assessed the link between leading and lagging safety performance indicators to determine whether or not the same factors are being investigated in accident investigations and safety climate surveys. The second part developed a human factors accident investigation tool (HFIT) which was used to collect accident and incident data by HSE inspectors and the participating companies' accident investigators. This tool was evaluated by comparing the companies' safety climate data with their accident data.

Accident management at nuclear power stations

Dr Margaret Crichton and Rhona Flin, School of Psychology, email: r.flin@abdn.ac.uk - Tel: 01224-272341

Training methods for accident management at nuclear power plants were examined in this study. The investigation is sponsored by British Energy. Emphasis is on training provided for emergency response personnel with plant responsibilities, from control room operators to Access Controllers. A particular focus is on accident management procedures, and their subsequent usage when ncertainty becomes a more significant factor.

The role of implicit attitudes in safety and risk perception

Dr Calvin Burns, School of Psychology, email: k.mearns@abdn.ac.uk - Tel: 01224-273217

This was a PhD project sponsored by Shell Expro (UK) and the University of Aberdeen, 2000 to 2003. It examined how trust affects situation awareness and risk assessment by offshore oil workers. It investigated how trust influences selective attention to sources of information, perception of that information and measured how that, in turn, influences the individual's ongoing situation awareness. The effects of workload and norms on situation assessment and behaviour in routine work activities were also examined.

High reliability and safety culture in Scottish prisons

Dr Bill Rattray Email: r.flin@abdn.ac.uk

The context of this PhD thesis was crisis management in the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), with a specific emphasis on incident command of riots where hostages are taken. Incident Command Teams in the SPS are temporary organisations of personnel brought together from different geographical locations to manage complex, difficult crises. The aim, therefore, of the research was to explore the potential transfer of research findings on high reliability incident command systems to incident command methodology in the SPS.

Tel: +44 (0)1224 273210

Email: w.booth@abdn.ac.uk

 

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