DREADED DAYS WHEN WORKERS WERE MINUTES FROM DISASTER

WHEN the Grand Hotel was bombed in 1984 hotel workers whose usual shifts had seen them serving drinks and attending to room service were suddenly exposed to a terrifying terrorist attack.

The IRA bomb, which killed four people during the Conservative Party conference on October 12, changed an everyday workplace into a scene of destruction.

Last October when two trains collided just outside Paddington station killing 30 people, staff from a nearby supermarket helped tend to the injured by using first aid kits from their shelves to patch up wounds.

These two scenarios graphically illustrate how workers can be transported from the routine and daily grind of their jobs to tragedy in a matter of minutes.

A new study by a Sussex-based researcher has called for employers urgently to reassess how they help staff cope with workplace trauma, particularly the use of de-briefing sessions where staff are asked to talk about the emotional impact of what they have seen.

Dr Jo Rick, from the Institute for Employment Studies at the University of Sussex, said businesses were frequently caught out when it came to dealing with the aftermath of traumatic events, from a hold-up at a service station to a group of colleagues being killed in a car accident.

She said: "Recent tragedies have highlighted the importance of psychological trauma management for employees involved in accidents affecting them at work.

"Rescue and emergency services come immediately to mind, but the Paddington incident also involved many organisations coming to terms with the death and injury of colleagues.

"When tragedy strikes it is the wrong time to start deciding what to do or how to respond.

"Our concern is the automatic inclusion of de-briefing may present problems.

" At best its efficiency is neutral and at worst it can be damaging. This fact should be of concern to any organisation with trauma management services."

Dr Rick's findings, part of research carried out with Birkbeck College in London, have been presented to the British Psychological Society's annual Occupational Psychology Conference, which has just finished in Brighton.

Dr Rick argues de-briefing can sometimes re-expose people to the trauma they have witnessed when they are extremely vulnerable.

She also said the range of emotions people go through after witnessing something like the Grand Hotel bombing could be so complex that scratching the surface with an arbitrary de-briefing could do more harm than good.

She added research into the effectiveness of intervention in post traumatic stress had focused on individuals admitted to hospital, while little research had been done within organisations.

But when psychological trauma happened in the workplace environmental influences introduced a new set of relationships.

She said: "De-briefing is widespread in industry because there is unquestioned belief in its success.

"However there is a lack of evidence that de-briefing is effective in industry settings and some general research evidence that there are circumstances in which it is harmful.

"There is an urgent need for follow-up evaluation of its effects on staff in organisational contexts."

As part of the research Dr Rick spoke to managers from organisations and looked at the industrial policies of various employers.

One organisation singled out for praise was Brighton Health Care NHS Trust, which runs four hospitals in the town including the Royal Sussex County Hospital.

The Royal Sussex, which dealt with a stream of casualties after the Grand bombing, has been commended for trying to minimise dangers before they happen.

It has a wide network of close circuit TV cameras to watch out for potentially violent patients, a major problem for staff and is finalising a wide-reaching stress policy to make sure all employees feel they can discuss why they feel pressured and have confidence it is being taken seriously.

Jane Olver, the trust's nurse manager for occupational health, said: "Brighton Health Care is very aware of the importance of tackling work-related stress.

"We have long recognised the potentially adverse effects for staff of having to cope with major or critical incidents.

"For many years departments such as accident and emergency have developed their own systems for supporting staff during particularly difficult or distressing times.

"The trust board has recently taken the decision to formalise and bring together the various work centred around incident de-briefing."

Retired firefighter Fred Bishop helped rescue MP Norman Tebbit and his wife, Margaret, from the rubble of the Grand Hotel.

He said in those days counselling was not an option for fire workers after a major incident and fire staff accepted seeing death and destruction came with the territory.

Mr Bishop said the key was recognising that workers were individuals and not assuming all wanted or needed to talk about how well they were coping.

He said: "At the time of the bombing 16 years ago there was a sense of: 'If you can't handle the heat you shouldn't be a firefighter.

"Every individual is different and they have to make up their own minds. People need to decide what is for them. If they feel it will be better to talk about it that's up to them.

"I don't know that it necessarily makes sense to automatically put people through an emotional de-briefing.

"Certainly at the time of the bombing the attitude was not to dwell on what we had seen and get on with our jobs.

"The men would come back to the station, have a cup of tea, reflect on what they had done and that would be it.

"We were just expected to take it."

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