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10 RISK ASSESSMENT AND CRISIS
MANAGEMENT
Clive Barrow
Climb if you will, but remember that courage and strength are nought without
prudence, and that a momentary negligence may destroy the happiness of a lifetime. Do
nothing in haste; look well to each step; and from the beginning think what may be the
end.
from scrambles amongst the alps by edward whymper (1860)
isk assessment has become a prerequisite for organisers of expeditions and
R outdoor activities in the UK and overseas, and is now a legal requirement for
commercially organised outdoor activities for under-18s in the UK. There is currently
no law in this country governing the organisation of expeditions overseas. Many see
this as a good thing. Fortunately, the number of serious incidents among participants
in overseas expeditions is very small, at 0.3 per 1000 person-days (Anderson and
Johnson, 2000).
However, the climate of opinion in the UK is changing in several ways:
• The public is more circumspect about safety and risk as a result of increased
media coverage of expedition or outdoor activity accidents.
• As a nation, the UK is adopting a more litigious culture in line with the USA.
• Expectations of safety among the parents and guardians of young people are
becoming higher as a result of the introduction of stringent safety procedures
and Health and Safety regulations in educational establishments.
Given this risk-adverse climate, planners and leaders of all overseas expeditions
should be conducting a systematic, careful and responsible safety management
assessment. Risk assessment is the first and perhaps most important part of this. This
chapter is intended to provide a brief practical guide to risk assessment, coupled with
the key considerations involved in crisis management planning.
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RISK ASSESSMENT (TABLE 10.1)
TABLE 10.1 RISK ASSESSMENT: SOME DEFINITIONS
Hazard A situation or set of circumstances that have the potential to
cause harm
Risk The likelihood of harm potentially caused by a hazard
Risk assessment The conscious process applied to the identification of hazards
and the risks associated with them and the subsequent
identification and implementation of a series of control measures
to minimise the risk highlighted
Hazard and risk on overseas expeditions
Hazard and risk are inherent in everything we do and the degree of hazard and risk
is dependent on the activity and environment in which that activity takes place. In
the UK the degree of risk is considerably less than overseas, particularly in less devel-
oped countries where the ability to control our environment, coupled with a lack of
knowledge of that environment, is proportionately greater. Risk assessment of over-
seas projects must therefore consider a wider array of hazards, and must always allow
for the unexpected (Table 10.2).
The expedition organiser must always be prepared to adopt alternatives and/or
completely abandon an activity if the risk assessment suggests that control measures
cannot reduce the risk to an acceptable level.
In attempting to qualify and quantify risk, it is important not to worry unneces-
sarily about trivia. A risk assessment that is too cluttered with minor concerns will be
discarded in the field as a bureaucrat’s folly, and will be of less value than not doing
one at all. Any severe and persistent risk must appear in the risk assessment docu-
ment, together with appropriate control measures.
Acceptable risk
On an overseas expedition, risk can never be completely eliminated. Indeed, it is
through the management of both perceived and real risks that expeditions of all
types can have such beneficial effects on the participants. Most expedition organisers
speak of reducing risk to an acceptable level. This is extremely difficult to define
because opinions about acceptability may differ greatly among individuals.
The experience, age, ability and technical competence of the participants on an
expedition or overseas project must be considered, because this will affect the level
of risk considered acceptable. When considering the concept of acceptable risk,
think first of to whom the risk should be acceptable? To whom are you accountable?
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TABLE 10.2 HAZARD AND RISK ON OVERSEAS EXPEDITIONS
Hazard Risk
1. The team
Health and fitness (including previous Increased risk of health problems on existing
medical conditions) expedition leading to serious illness/death
Attitude and behaviour Increased risk of ignoring control measures
resulting in illness/injury
Experience and training Lack increases risk in all activities
Personal equipment Serious injury/illness resulting from
inadequate equipment/equipment failure
2. The environment
Mountains/sea/desert/jungle Altitude sickness/drowning/heat problems
Climate and weather conditions Heat- and cold-related injury/death
Wildlife (including insects) Attack/poisoning through bites/stings/disease
3. Health
Endemic disease (dengue fever/ Serious illness or death
Japanese encephalitis)
Malaria Serious illness or death
AIDS/HIV Serious illness or death
Polluted water Serious illness
Contaminated food Serious illness or death
4. Local population
Political climate Political instability/coup/kidnapping/
imprisonment (e.g. UK plane spotters
in Greece!)
Attitudes to foreigners/cultural differences Attack/rape/theft/access to drugs
Hygiene/living conditions Disease
5. Expedition activity
Trekking/climbing/mountaineering Altitude sickness/falls from height
River crossing Serious injury/drowning
Water-based activities (diving/kayaking/sailing) Drowning/leptospirosis
Underground activities (caving/cave-diving) Drowning/suffocation/starvation
Equipment failure/inappropriate use Serious injury/death
Games/sports activities Injury/incapacitation
6. Travel and camp life
Transport (public/private) High risk of serious injury/death
Road/water conditions Increased risk of accidents
Other road users Increased risk of accidents
Camp hazards (stoves/fires/flooding/ Burns/drowning/suffocation/injury/death
avalanche/wildlife)
Accommodation/hotels Fire/electrocution/serious injury/disease/
mugging/attack
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Examples might include your peers, participants, parents, school governors, local
education authorities, teachers, sponsors, research bodies, etc.
To quantify acceptable risk in the context of your own project or expedition, it is
important to ask key individuals and groups what they feel is acceptable to them.
Don’t ever assume! The greater the challenge and promise of achievement (e.g. first
conquest of a new mountain peak), the greater the acceptable risk.
Control measures
Control measures are the backbone of the risk assessment process. They are what the
expedition leader initiates to reduce or eliminate a particular risk. Some examples
would be as follows:
• providing first-aid training before the expedition starts
• getting immunised before exposure to disease
• preventing bites by disease-transmitting insects.
In most cases, many control measures can be implemented before the expedition
as part of the planning process. However, once the expedition or project actually
starts there may be many more control measures to consider.
Risk assessment format
There are many variants on the format for a risk assessment. There is no right or
wrong way to draw one up provided that the principles are observed. The important
thing to ensure is that any staff or team member should be able immediately to see
from the risk assessment document the risks identified, the control measures that
have been put in place and any further actions required.
The UK Health and Safety Executive refers to the five steps of risk assessment.
These are as follows:
1. Identify the hazards and associated risks.
2. Identify who is potentially at risk and how.
3. Identify the precautions or control measures to minimise the risk, including any
further action required to reduce the risk to an acceptable level.
4. Record your findings.
5. Review the risk assessment periodically.
This process is clear and straightforward and can be applied to any expedition
overseas.
A convenient format for risk assessment is shown in Table 10.3:
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TABLE 10.3 SAMPLE RISK ASSESSMENT
Hazard Risk level Control measure Additional action Review mechanism
Data collection High Careful route Leader/staff Post-expedition
activities selection approve activity report with
Trekking/ Use of guides or, if necessary, information
river Competent, halt progress about incidents
crossing experienced if new risk arising, and
group leaders rendering it changes to risk
Use of ropes/ unsafe to assessment
training in river proceed
crossing
techniques
No activity after
dark
Safety and medical
kit carried at
all times
Group risk
assessment
before each
day’s activity
Involving others in the risk assessment process
Never assume that members of an expedition team will observe or abide by the
contents of a risk assessment in which they have had no involvement. The key to
effective risk assessment stems from clarity and commitment on the part of all of
those who may potentially be at risk. It is strongly recommended, therefore, that
team members play a part in compiling the assessment at some stage of the planning
process. This risk assessment is an essential part of turning a piece of paper into a
living process for managing day-to-day risk on an expedition.
Reviewing a risk assessment
As a result of changing circumstances and environmental conditions, the risk assess-
ment must be reviewed regularly to remain effective. Changes to the assessment on
paper are useless if they are not properly communicated to staff and participants, or
if staff and participants cannot see a reason for the changes.
Golden rules of risk assessment
Some simple rules for compiling risk assessments that work are captured in the
following acronym:
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C Clarify the hazards and risks
R Reassess and revise it where necessary
I Involve all participants in the process
S State it simply in writing
I If it’s too risky – don’t do it!
S Share knowledge and experience
CRISIS MANAGEMENT
The key to crisis management is to put in place planning systems and measures that
help to recognise a crisis in the making, to prevent one from happening in the first
place, and to handle a crisis effectively if one does occur.
Planning
Crisis management planning should always concentrate on the “worst case scenario”.
Day-to-day administration procedures may be adequate when all is going according
to plan, but these are largely irrelevant when catering for the possibility of a serious
expedition incident. Be a pessimistic planner! The expedition planner must always be
flexible in a changing world. On the plus side, better communications are constantly
evolving and new medical facilities are becoming available worldwide. On the minus
side, beware of the political turbulence that seems to be characteristic of recent
history, which makes the world a less predictable place.
Legal considerations
As with planning always consider the worst eventuality, e.g. a fatality for which you
may or may not be found negligent. If your procedures and systems concentrate on
the premise that omission and incompetence are equally dangerous, you are less
likely to fall foul of the legal system. Always ask yourself the question, “How would I
justify this decision/action in court?”
Expedition organisers, particularly regular providers, should always have some
form of written agreement with the participant. This may be an application form
associated with a set of booking conditions, or a simple letter of understanding.
Either way, if a crisis results in legal proceedings, documents of this sort will play a
significant part in establishing responsibility.
Consider also the “duty of care” placed on the organiser of an expedition. With
under-18s this also extends to the requirement to act in a supervisory role as a
prudent parent would under the same circumstances (in loco parentis).
Insurance
The contract or agreement with a participant must make it clear if insurance is
included or excluded from the expedition costs. To establish a lack of insurance
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during a crisis is a disaster in itself, because it is insurance that is generally expected
to meet most of the costs of handling a serious incident. During the planning
process, the organiser must carefully establish the risks, before attempting to insure
against those that the expedition may be faced with. In the less developed world,
there are other eventualities that can be insured against which would not appear in
the text of a conventional travel policy. These include contingency/war risk, kidnap-
ping, and search and rescue.
Selection of staff and participants
Given that we are trying to avoid a crisis, we must pay attention to the selection of
our staff and participants, some of whom may be “an accident going somewhere to
happen”. Each organiser will have their own systems for recruiting and, in the context
of crisis management, the selection of personnel will be hugely significant. Inexperi-
enced staff will not be able to pre-empt a crisis as effectively as those who have sound
skills and particularly judgement. Irresponsible team members are more likely to
cause a crisis through thoughtless action. There are many ways in which to assess the
suitability of candidates for an overseas expedition, including carefully prepared
application forms, references, interviews, assessment and selection courses. For the
commercial provider, there is always a conflict between the necessity to generate
turnover and the potential liability of accepting unsuitable participants. This is a
balance that must be addressed if a crisis is to be avoided.
Training and preparation
Having selected a suitable staff and participant team, there is a requirement for
induction, briefing and training. The better physically, emotionally and administra-
tively prepared an expedition team is, the less likely it is that an incident of a serious
nature will occur. One should never ignore the fact that it is practically impossible to
prepare people for every fast ball that the less developed world may hurl, but there is
much that can and should be done in preparation. Methods of preparation may
include verbal and written briefings, residential courses, and practical outdoor
training events or workshop sessions. It is suggested that a combination of these
methods of preparation is most effective to strike the optimum balance between
skills and theory.
Emergency procedures
Emergency procedures form a focal point in the effective handling of an expedition
crisis. The detail and extent of these procedures will obviously vary according to the
type of expedition, and the number of projects and areas that they are designed to
apply to. In essence, they should allow the staff and/or team members of an expedi-
tion to initiate a process that will permit the following:
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• immediate care of a casualty/casualties and other involved parties
• evacuation to relevant medical care
• revision of expedition logistics/objectives
• communication with interested parties at home and overseas
• monitoring of casualty/casualties in care
• liaison with families/close relatives
• liaison with insurers/assistance agencies
• facility to supply information to authorities/media/public
• follow-up and review.
Emergency procedures must be written down and communicated in the same way
as a risk assessment.
Contacts
An address book of contacts is invaluable in crisis management planning because it
establishes an infrastructure of support to the expedition overseas. Planners must
consider this requirement from all angles. In the host country, government agencies
and British representatives (embassies/consulates) must be alerted to the organiser’s
plans and advice sought accordingly. British missions abroad are generally
contactable 24 hours a day. Other contacts should be sourced to provide advice and
assistance with crisis handling. A national agent of contact is recommended who can
act as a focal point for communication to and from the UK, particularly when direct
communications are limited from the area of a host country in which a team may be
operating, and likewise for local contacts (hotels/guides/rescue organisations),
communications, medical back-up and important local knowledge.
The contacts portfolio should always be evolving as planning progresses, and the
expedition staff/leaders equipped with a full and up-to-date list of helpful contacts
with the type of support available before departure from the UK.
The medical umbrella
Although not always the case, an expedition crisis generally involves an accident,
illness or injury to an expedition member or members. For this reason, careful atten-
tion must be paid to the establishment of a “medical umbrella”. This applies not only
to immediate medical support to expedition members, but to the entire planning
process.
Attention must be paid to the skills of the expedition members and accompanying
staff. There must be sufficient first-aid skills among the team to deal with the imme-
diate care of a casualty. In the absence of an expedition doctor, several courses are
now available that concentrate on more advanced medicine for remote foreign travel
for competent first aiders. Careful selection of the expedition medical kit is also
important. This should be put together with the expert advice of a qualified doctor
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(preferably with expedition experience) and all expedition members instructed in
the appropriate use of its contents.
The investigation and enlistment of locally and nationally available medical
support form another essential part of the medical umbrella. British missions in the
host country often have lists of recommended doctors and dentists in the capital city,
but rarely have information about the further-flung outposts likely to be frequented
by expedition teams. For this reason, detailed research is necessary to produce a
support network of medical contacts in the areas in which an expedition will be
operating. Support may come from local aid projects with medical back-up, clinics
and dispensaries, local hospitals, or, on a national basis, the GPs and hospitals
commonly used by the expatriate population of the country. The list of medical
contacts should preferably also include specialists if possible, plus a recommended
dentist (often overlooked).
Communications
Without communications, an expedition team is reliant solely on its own ability
to handle a crisis. Thus, the poorer the communications, the more competent,
experienced and medically trained the team needs to be. The communications
infrastructure in the crisis management plan should aim to incorporate as many
options as possible. The reliability of communications in the less developed
world can be appalling, and thus the more options that are researched and made
Casualty
Expedition leader
Local representative/doctor
(contacted by runner/radio/local transport)
Assistance agency/national contact point
(contacted by telephone/radio/telex/fax)
UK back-up link/emergency centre
(contacted by satellite distress beacon/telephone/telex/fax/email)
Media/public/relative
(contacted by telephone)
Figure 10.1 Emergency communication network
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available, the greater the chance of establishing and maintaining links with the
outside world.
Essentially, the expedition team relies either on its own communications brought
in from overseas (radios, distress beacons, satellite telephones) or on local systems
(telephone, runner, telex, local radio communications). In practice, the communica-
tions network will comprise some of both, although this will also depend on the
nature of the expedition and the size/budget of the organiser. Whatever network is in
place, it should allow the team to communicate with the outside world in an emer-
gency. And, after initial evacuation has taken place, the network should allow for
two-way communications between the expedition guide/leader and the UK. Figure
10.1 outlines an emergency communication network.
UK back-up
Whatever the size of the expedition, it should have a 24-hour contact in the UK
capable of responding and assisting in a crisis. For the smaller or one-off expedition
overseas, this may be a family member or colleague who is fully conversant with the
expedition medical and contact details for all next-of-kin/closest relatives of all expe-
dition members (including staff). For larger organisations, this back-up may take the
form of a duty officer and/or and assistance agency or emergency centre. The func-
tion of the UK back-up is to liaise with all the relevant parties in the UK. This may
include relatives, sponsoring organisations, insurers, assistance agencies and the
press. In addition, this vital link may be in a position to make contact with local
support from the UK which, for whatever reason, the expedition in the host country
may be unable to contact. The potential scope and extent of this role in a crisis
require that the UK back-up be highly capable and responsible, and fully briefed by
the expedition organiser.
Sharing experiences
Now that the world has so few frontiers, the likelihood is that, for every expedition to
a remote part of the developing world, another has gone before. As a body, organisers
of expeditions have a duty to share their experiences with others who follow them in
an attempt to avoid recurrent tragedy on expeditions. This can be done in a number
of ways from informal conversation between past and present expedition organisers,
to formal accident/near-miss reporting such as that set up by the Royal Geographical
Society–Institute of British Geographers (RGS–IBG) Expedition Advisory Centre
(EAC). For this to happen, the responsibility must lie both with the organiser who
has experienced a crisis on an expedition (who should lodge a report with a relevant
body such as the EAC/Young Explorers’ Trust/British Mountaineering Council/
Alpine Club or similar), and with the planner whose research and initial risk assess-
ment should lead them to such bodies to learn from the experience of others.
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FURTHER READING
Anderson, S. and Johnson, C. (2000) Expedition health and safety: a risk assessment. Journal of the Royal
Society of Medicine 93: 557–561.
This paper summarises the findings of the RGS–IBG Expedition H&S survey for the years 1995–1997.
This paper and more recent data for the years 1995–2000 and beyond can be downloaded from
www.rgs.org/medicalcell
Bailie, M. (1997) Risk Assessments, Safety Statements and all that Guff. Adventure Activities Licensing
Authority (www.aala.org).
Health and Safety Executive (1998) Five Steps to Risk Assessment. HSE Books. Tel: + 44 1787 881165,
website: www.hsebooks.co.uk
Can be downloaded from www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg163.pdf
HSE Adventure Activities Industry Advisory Committee (1999) Adventure Activities Centres: Five steps to
risk assessment. HSE Books. Tel: + 44 1787 881165, website: www.hsebooks.co.uk
Putnam, R. (2002) Safe and Responsible Expeditions. London: Young Explorers’ Trust.
Stables, R. (2002) Casualty evacuation. In: Warrell, D. and Anderson, S. (eds), Expedition Medicine.
London: Profile Books with RGS–IBG, pp. 181–6.
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