Tim Marsh analyses the data around PPE.
Science Photo Library / Alamy Stock Photo
Imagine your child is visiting relatives in America and you’ve given a choice of two cousins they can stay with. One keeps guns in the house and the other has no guns and also has a lovely swimming pool. With safety in mind which of the two houses would you choose for your child to stay in? I expect you’re thinking that’s a very easy choice?
Actually, however, the chance of a phone call starting ‘I’m sorry to tell you that something absolutely terrible has happened …’ is 200 times greater from the house with the pool. (This example from Freakonomics – the fascinating book about data). The authors develop on these figures to suggest that ‘there are deaths and there are deaths’ and that we instinctively feel that an accidental shooting is, somehow, just much more devastating and horrible than a drowning.
My old friends at the BOHS would recognise this mind-set. For decades now the likelihood of being killed by exposure to toxins at work in the UK (in due course) is around 100 times the likelihood of being killed in an accident. In reality, this means, for example, a recent grandparent dying from COPD or cancer in their early 70s rather than falling off a roof in their 20s or 30s.
We’ve been saying for a long time now ‘we’ve got to stop shouting safety and whispering health’ and to a great extent we have. We’ve really started to shout about mental health and be aware of the 32 suicides of working age people to 1 industrial accident UK ratio.
This is, I’d argue, a hugely welcome development but this still largely ignores that three times worse 100 to 1 ratio.
The first issue to consider is good old fashioned ABC analysis. Consequences such as deaths and debilitating illness related to exposure are delayed and uncertain so on any given day we can kid ourselves we’re not being harmed and never will be. You could be optimistic and point out that people who smoke have only a 50% chance of being killed by it and so millions hope for the best with a ‘ah, well, life itself is just a coin toss isn’t it’?! (Perhaps the most optimistic worker I ever saw – in a toxic gas filled steel works 20 years ago – had poked a hole in his face mask so he could have a cheeky ciggie from time to time. He’d be about 70 now … I’d be amazed to find a bookie would even give me that 50:50 on finding him still with us)!
An illustration of the power of ‘uncertain and delayed’ – none of us would wish a death from cancer or lung disease on our very worst enemy).
It’s not that we’re simply blatantly disregarding of workers health anymore – it’s a long time since, for example, half the employees of a hat making factory were visibly deranged by mercury poisoning within months. On the other hand, I’d argue that many employers still take huge advantage of people’s optimism and short-term nature.
It’s a truth that management and legislators are long since retired to golf course and/or the Lords when the crap hits the fan decades down the line because people just are driven to simply ‘get on’. And big business can be perfectly happy to just let them. Sometimes by simple short-term thinking and a lack of rigour and curiosity… but sometimes by something far more considered and sinister. Perhaps the most deadly historical example: it was known almost immediately that adding lead to petrol to stop ‘knocking’ was very dangerous. Big business denied this, buried research, bought research labs, fought, lobbied, (and just lied) and it took decades to get it banned.
In that time literally millions had lost their lives unnecessarily and it’s suggested that a 30% reduction in crime in the USA occurred naturally following the ban due to a reduction in brain damage! (Or we could talk about films like Erin Brokovich and Dark Water).
I saw a fascinating talk about respirators and face masks the other day that really tied all this together for me.
The expert speaker walked us through the various protective options and what could go wrong with using them. I took note and realised just why the BOHS is tearing its hair out. It’s because – and I think this not at all a controversial or original list – many employers:
Fail to assess the exposure and risk accurately
And/ or seek a solution as low down the safety hierarchy as possible (As we all know PPE should only ever be the very last resort). Then …
Provide only the legal minimum PPE
Of course, even this basic approach only works effectively if:
Fit training and testing is undertaken effectively – including ensuring trainees fully understand why the PPE is needed.
I mean, with production demands, staff shortages, human error and human nature in mind, what could possibly and very predictably go wrong with that list?
It’s impossible to see what we do about it without a far sighted and co-ordinated approach involving lobbying, legislature and empowered enforcement. (I think I’m well placed to be first to concede that traditional behavioural safety approaches based on observation and challenge front line behaviour can help but in truth oft barely scratch the surface).
A holistic approach where genuinely effective analysis (that fully allows for human nature) when seeking long term design solutions is better. However, in the last analysis this issue is where the infamous ‘unacceptable face of capitalism’ (and/or bureaucracy) crashes head first into human nature resulting in one almighty and on-going train crash.
You’d almost think not all devastating damage and death are the same. Breathe freely indeed.
In this episode of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.
We provide an insight on how to tackle burnout and why mental health is such a taboo subject, particularly in the workplace.
