Karl Raby’s Post

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Owner, High Q. Height Safety Management Specialists.

IRATA safety bulletins for dummies….. I make no apologies for such a blunt post, but with 4 fatalities, 13 Major Injuries and 32 Serious Injuries in the years 2018 to 2022, it is clear that many of the lessons from Safety Bulletins are not being learned. I continue to train and assess revalidating candidates that have very little knowledge of the IRATA Safety Bulletins, Work and Safety Analysis, Serious Incident Briefings and other safety related publications from IRATA. Now I know that most training companies would blame the candidates, but in my experience, the learning materials provided by the training companies often do not focus candidate learning in an effective way. I find this frustrating, as from my time involved with IRATA I know of the many hundreds of hours of volunteer time spent trying to get valuable safety information out to frontline workers, and the evidence on the ground is that this information isn’t getting to those who need it. Not only are there IRATA volunteers, but in Dr Chris Robbins and David Thomas, IRATA have for many years had the service of two titans of the HSE world.  At High Q we designed our own in-house online theory exam, and the main purpose of the exam is to familiarise candidates with these resources. The exam is open book and asks questions such as ‘name 3 recommendations from a WASA report’, or ‘provide 2 recommendations from Safety Bulletin 22. We’re not interested in testing whether a candidate can see a diagram of a compound 2:1 and 3:1 system to calculate the resulting mechanical advantage – subjects like this might be interesting for rope access nerds, but they are not the root cause of accidents and incidents.   As you can see from the graphic, the majority of serious incidents result from five main categories: –  6 bulletins relate to rope damage –  5 bulletins relate to energised equipment –  4 relate to slack rope in the system –  4 relate to dropped objects –  3 relate to fragile surfaces/unprotected edges So come on IRATA Technicians, don’t be a dummy – log onto the IRATA website and take advantage of the resource there … and to my fellow IRATA training providers, I ask ‘are you confident you are adequately preparing your candidates?’

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Craig Hannah

Rope Access Level 3, NDT - Lead Technician / (PCN 3.1/3.2, MPI and DPI all level 2) at Stork

2mo

There was a time that IRATA would send out information to technicians who had signed up for the information. There now seems to be no direct contact between IRATA and their technicians except for the 3 yearly revalidation, or you regularly work for a company who shares the safety bulletins as part of their HSE policy. The other trade organisations I belong to send out newsletters and updates to their members on a regular basis, possibly something IRATA should embrace as well as technicians logging onto the IRATA site?

Chris Haritou

Abfad Projects / Health & Safety Director at Abfad Limited

2mo

There needs to be more safety training for all IRATA operatives, it is not good enough to put out 5 day syllabus for training to work at height without the practical knowledge of the gear, daily inspections, issues associated with equipment failure and how this comes about, risk assessment knowledge and practical application, legal framework for Supervisors who manage level 1 & 2 operatives, this has been discussed many time at the RAC meeting but it seems it goes on deaf ears as IRATA management are not interested to change the training as part of the rope access training syllabus, the aims of the training is to keep person working at height safe. Not good enough to allow rope access training without the safety background training, accident and incidents occur mostly due to several issues colliding at the same time and human interaction, if rope access operatives are trained on safety aspects and legal safety compliance accident statistics would reduce, it’s common sense.

Riccardo Roberts

Director Vertical Rigging Services , Rope Access & Specialist Training

2mo

There is no doubt Karl that the bulletins need to be cascaded through the ranks and analysis made. However the race to the top and focus on rates is causing these issues I hear this all the time. I rub shoulders with lots of Ops & Rope access managers through my business and they all say the same the training needs to change and be more focused on work scenarios. I feel it’s a deeper problem especially at level 3 are they being trained to run a team safety ? As an experienced trainer in several fields I would say no they are being trained rope tricks and reactive rescues. With little time spent on the real important stuff like job planning & risk assessment hopefully with time it changes.

Robert Whelan

Operations Supervisor.

2mo

Is the main responsibility not with the technicians and the employing companies? All the resources are readily available. IRATA member companies need to up their game with extra training throughout the year. Training centres are currently only there to do the basics and make sure the basic requirements are being maintained.

Lee Hughes

Strategic Leader in Offshore Operations & Maintenance | Experienced in Full Lifecycle Asset Management for Oil & Gas Facilities

2mo

In my direct experience, top down, the IRATA community do not excel at leaning in to failure to extract meaningful learning from rope access “related” incidents. Read the coroners reports, they hold valuable lessons that the community can learn and improve from, but by the time they are published, industry has moved on and IRATA tend to distance themselves from the contributing factors that we as industry can directly influence and improve. IRATA by design is a Hierachal System. How does that impact team dynamics and how can we do more to better influence the safety culture amongst teams? Great post.

Maciej Buchcic

IRATA Level 3 Supervisor/GWO Instructor/BOSIET/MIST/RIGGER/ Offering best rope access solutions in Ireland, the UK and Europe.

2mo

I agree that rope technician should actively look for info and knowledge, but I see that IRATA as an organisation is doing very little to make it easy for us. It is a shame that there is news letters, publications, social media activity from IRATA. To read bulletin on the phone you need to go to website, find it (not that easy) download it to your device and read in unfriendly format. #IRATA please get your act together.

Lance Gelden

Wingman Aerial Tool Systems

2mo

I agree with the overall sentiment and goal, but not sure if adding more theory exams to staff is the best way to solve practical problems. IMO alot of tradies and rope crew lose focus or interest when bombed with theoretical info, me included! I think the best results come from practical demonstrations, and working with your crew in 'real life' situations. Helping them rig a deviation on site or choose and fit rope-pro where it matters - is way more powerful than giving them the right chapter to read on the correct practice.

Kevin Richard Monaghan

Managing Director, Paramount Safety Training & Consultancy, Singapore

2mo

Not good Karl

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Aneurin 'Nye' Cooper

IRATA 3 22yrs EXP/ 10yrs WIND EXP/ BLADE TECH FULL GWO BST BTT / ENHANCED FIRST AID / GWO ART / ICATS

2mo

According to IRATA website the last bulletin was over 3 years ago? Pretty sure there has been fatalities since then. Am i missing something? IRATA should have an email address for every single technician yet the last email i recieved from them regarding safety bulletins was in April 2018

Ivan Korchev

Rope Access Manager @ HANDYBATCH LTD | Managing Safety in Construction

2mo

People won't read, but since they are on Tik Tok all day and IRATA Edge Management video had such a success, let's create them videos for Dummies 😁🤣

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