Safety at the Sharp End: A Guide to Non-Technical Skills

by Rhona H. Flin, Paul O'Connor and Margaret Crichton

Many 21st century operations are characterised by teams of workers dealing with significant risks and complex technology, in competitive, commercially-driven environments. Informed managers in such sectors have realised the necessity of understanding the human dimension to their operations if they hope to improve production and safety performance. While organisational safety culture is a key determinant of workplace safety, it is also essential to focus on the non-technical skills of the system operators based at the 'sharp end' of the organisation. These skills are the cognitive and social skills required for efficient and safe operations, often termed Crew Resource Management (CRM) skills. In industries such as civil aviation, it has long been appreciated that the majority of accidents could have been prevented if better non-technical skills had been demonstrated by personnel operating and maintaining the system. As a result, the aviation industry has pioneered the development of CRM training. Many other organisations are now introducing non-technical skills training, most notably within the healthcare sector. Safety at the Sharp End is a general guide to the theory and practice of non-technical skills for safety. It covers the identification, training and evaluation of non-technical skills and has been written for use by individuals who are studying or training these skills on CRM and other safety or human factors courses. The material is also suitable for undergraduate and post-experience students studying human factors or industrial safety programmes.

Genres: Medicine

336 pages, Paperback

First published February 8, 2007

Reviews

[Steve Granger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great Occupational health and safety textbook. I found the early descriptive chapters to be quite good and appreciated the many examples throughout. Some small errors here and there, and I found the later applied chapters to be somewhat lacking in substance relative to the earlier descriptives ones. Hopefully this book continues to get updated! If I ever have to teach an undergraduate OHS course, I would be inclined to use this.

[Gallottino · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting the first part about non technical skills (NTS): situation awareness is analyzed beautifully.
After page 100 too many theories explained (some of them already old) and the quality of the book is not so good.
Too many schemes and a sense of confusion. Many theories but few practical examples.
Different styles of writing are evident.
There is a very good bibliography

[Sandra | Leituras descomplicadas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Para quem trabalha na área do factor humano, civil ou militar, e pretende compreender e trabalhar com competências não-técnicas, este é o livro certo. Pode mesmo chamar-se "uma pequena bíblia de competências não-técnicas". Para além de uma descrição detalhada e um olhar teórico sobre um conjunto alargado de competências, este livro apresenta ainda formas de implementação do treino dessas competências e a sua avaliação, por forma a garantir a transferência para o trabalho diário do que foi treinado. Leitura obrigatória!