ABSTRACT
Most safety paradigms therefore start with a harmful event. In the case of regularly occurring events, the eagerly sought 'freedom from unacceptable risk' can usually be achieved in five different ways either alone or in combination: elimination, redesign, prevention, monitoring, and protection. The traditional meaning of safety (Safety-I) is that we are safe if we are without the adverse events or without the negative consequences. Safety-II would be 'the ability of an organisation to perform as required under both expected and unexpected conditions and not merely the absence of unwanted outcomes'. The changing face of safety will inevitably have consequences for a number of other things including the definition of safety culture. To ensure resilient performance an organisation must know how multiple activities work together to produce acceptable outcomes and how a synthesis can be developed, analysed and sustained. By showing how this can be done in practice, the Resilience Assessment Grid (RAG) becomes a tool for the management of Safety-II.
