A Life in Error

This succinct but absorbing book covers the main way stations on James Reason's 40-year journey in pursuit of the nature and varieties of human error. In it he presents an engrossing and very personal perspective, offering the reader exceptional insights, wisdom and wit as only James Reason can. The journey begins with a bizarre absent-minded action slip committed by Professor Reason in the early 1970s - putting cat food into the teapot - and continues up to the present day, conveying his unique perceptions into a variety of major accidents that have shaped his thinking about unsafe acts and latent conditions. A Life in Error charts the development of his seminal and hugely influential work from its original focus into individual cognitive psychology through the broadening of scope to embrace social, organizational and systemic issues. The voyage recounted is both hugely entertaining and educational, imparting a real sense of how James Reason's ground-breaking theories changed the way we think about human error, and why he is held in such esteem around the world wherever humans interact with technological systems. This book is essential reading for students, academics and safety professionals of all kinds who are interested in avoiding breakdowns that can cause serious damage to people, assets and the environment.

James Reason was Professor of Psychology at the University of Manchester from 1977 until 2001, from where he graduated in 1962. He has written books on motion sickness, absent-mindedness, human error, aviation human factors, managing the risks of organizational accidents, managing maintenance errors, and the human contribution: unsafe acts, accidents and heroic recoveries. He has worked in a wide variety of hazardous industries, though patient safety is now his primary concern. In 2003, he was awarded an honorary DSc by the University of Aberdeen. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, the Royal Aeronautical Society, the British Academy and the Royal College of General Practitioners. He received a CBE in 2003 for his services to reducing the risks in health care. In 2010, he received an Award for Distinguished Service from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, and in 2011 was elected an honorary fellow of the Safety and Reliability Society.

List of Figures, Foreword, Preface, Chapter 1 A Bizarre Beginning, Chapter 2 Plans, Actions and Consequences, Chapter 3 Three Performance Levels, Chapter 4 Absent-Minded Slips and Lapses, Chapter 5 Individual Differences, Chapter 6 A Courtroom Application of the SIML, Chapter 7 The Freudian Slip Revisited, Chapter 8 Planning Failures, Chapter 9 Violations, Chapter 10 Organizational Accidents, Chapter 11 Organizational Culture: Resisting Change, Chapter 12 Medical Error, Chapter 13 Disclosing Error, Chapter 14 Reviewing the Journey, Postscript, Index