Emergency Preparedness, Incident Investigation and Assurance
Emergency preparedness
Emergency plans must address credible major accident scenarios identified in risk assessment. Elements include scenario-based planning, alarm and communication systems, evacuation and escape routes, assembly and accounting for personnel, emergency shutdown, mutual aid, and liaison with offsite responders. Plans require exercises and drills (including with external agencies), review after exercises or incidents, and clear roles and responsibilities. Detection systems and emergency control centres support response.
Incident investigation
Investigations seek root and systemic causes, not just immediate causes. Methods include timeline reconstruction, five-whys, fault tree and barrier analysis, and interview techniques. Key principles: preserve evidence, separate fact from opinion, involve competent investigators independent of the event, and ensure recommendations are tracked to closure and shared. Distinguish immediate causes (unsafe acts/conditions) from underlying and root causes (management system failures).
Assurance
Assurance includes audits, inspections, performance monitoring and management review. Audits check compliance with the management system; they are not hazard studies. Leading and lagging indicators together give a balanced picture. Findings must be actioned and verified.
Traps in questions
- Stopping investigation at the immediate cause or the individual operator.
- Treating a drill as a tick-box exercise rather than a test of the plan.
- Confusing audit with HAZOP or inspection.
- Assuming written recommendations equal implementation - verify closure.
Rule of thumb
For every incident ask: which barrier failed, why did it fail, and is that failure possible elsewhere on site?