Safety Plans and Risk Assessments
Safety Plan and Risk Assessments for expeditions?
In safe hands: Our Military background in the Parachute Regiment means we have comprehensive safety plans and risk assessments for all our expeditions. To understand more about our approach to risk mitigation please read on:
Our approach to risk: Expeditions are inherently risky. They would not be attractive to participants if they were not. We conduct expeditions that are full of inherent risks due to the geographical regions we travel to, the type of travelling we do and the activities we conduct. By joining a Secret Compass expedition you are accepting these risks. We do, however, take the following approach to risk to minimise the likelihood of anything happening and reducing the consequences if anything does happen.
Our approach has evolved from our time spent in the Military, where high risk activities take place on a routine basis. It has also evolved from our experience managing high threats and risk in operational environments, where a constant re-evaluation of risk is critical to success. We also use Industry guidance - the British Standard 8848 to inform our policy, and Directors have attended the Off-Site Safety Management Course at the Royal Geographical Society. This background gives us the confidence to analyse risk in detail and conduct expeditions that others may not wish to.
We take a “whole view” approach to safety on expeditions through a three stage approach:
1. Risk mitigation. We carry out a full threat and risk assessment prior to each expedition, where we identify potential risks and put measures in place to mitigate these risks as far as reasonably possible given the locations we go to. At this stage we accept some risks as inherent to what we do. Key mitigation measures which are common to all expeditions are as follows:
- A detailed expedition plan.
- Responsible local partners.
- A detailed medical plan for all stages of the expedition, including facilities and assets in country, extraction plans and reaction times.
- An expedition medic and comprehensive expedition med pack.
- A detailed communication plan - We always carry Satphones!
- Training, if appropriate.
- Thorough briefing on risks and risk mitigation measures.
2. Expedition Conduct. Expeditions are then conducted in accordance with the various plans laid in place prior to the expedition, with a “dynamic” assessment being carried out by the leader at all times.
3. Reaction to incident. In the unlikely event of an incident or emergency, we have pre-written and practiced contingency, incident and emergency and communication plans that are immediately put into place in order to resolve the specific situation. The key to this is the pre-planning that has gone into this so our procedures can be enacted swiftly.
Many people travel with us because they feel that we have taken a comprehensive approach to their safety where as other services cannot.
If you have any questions about our approach please get in touch.
