NP8 - Review and Continual Improvements

Purpose

To ensure continuous improvement planning and procedures are in place to maintain the ongoing improvement of the Guidelines for Safe Pool Operation and describe the cycles that have been implemented to continually improve upon the effectiveness of safety within aquatic facilities.

Continual Improvement Approach

RLSSA is committed to the provision of continuous improvement practices to monitor measure and increase standards to consistently meet the changing needs of the organisation and the Australian aquatic industry.

RLSSA have adopted a systematic risk-based approach to monitoring and reviewing RLSSA Guidelines for Safe Pool Operation through a tiered analysis of their Governance, Management and Operations by ways of policies, processes, resources, outputs and stakeholders. The tiered analysis approach consists of Continuous Monitoring, Improvement Requests, After Action Reviews and Auditing.

Continuous Monitoring

RLSSA have established a monitoring regime to provide ongoing assurance that the RLSSA Guidelines for Safe Pool Operation remain effective. RLSSA staff and the National Aquatic Industry Committee are to maintain an environmental awareness of their roles and responsibilities and their working environment. This is achieved by regular communications such as newsletters, meetings, updates etc.

The Governance structures describe how RLSSA staff and the National Aquatic Industry Committee interact and regularly meet to ensure continuous monitoring against the Objectives and the RLSSA Guidelines for Safe Pool Operation.

Management Review

The Chief Executive Officer and the responsible officer will review the Management of the Guidelines for Safe Pool Operations periodically to re-affirm its adequacy and conformance to current requirements. A report of these findings may be supplied to the National Aquatic Industry Committee and Australian Government as applicable.

This is accomplished by reviewing records, findings from internal audits, improvement requests, complements and complaints from National Aquatic Industry Committee meetings, operational communications and general operational areas.

Reviews are achieved through the analysis of individual, organisational and industry capability and capacity, existing legal, administrative and Guidelines as well as the effectiveness of or possible improvement of those procedures.

After Action Reviews

After Action Reviews occur after significant projects / reviews are undertaken within the Australian Aquatic Industry that have a significant impact on the Guidelines including but not limited:

• Coronial Inquests
• Legislative and Regulatory Changes
• Significant Incidents
• Drowning Research Reports
• Compliance Audits
• Risk Assessments

The conducting of After Action Reviews is the responsibility of the responsible officer (or delegate) in conjunction with the National Aquatic Industry Committee and with all parties that have supported the actual activity.

Where an Improvement is identified via an After Action Review the responsible officer is responsible for ensuring that an Improvement Request is raised and summarised for consideration of the National Aquatic Industry Committee.

Assessments

Individual Assessments of Pool Operations or a collective evaluation of a number of Assessments may identify possible improvement to the Guidelines for Safe Pool Operations or its supporting resources.

Where an Improvement is identified via the Assessment process the RLSSA endorsed Assessor is responsible for ensuring that an Improvement Request is raised and communicated to the responsible officer for summarising and consideration of the National Aquatic Industry Committee.

Improvement Requests Procedure

The responsible officer processes Improvement Requests by ensuring the form is fully completed.  Where the action associated with an Improvement Request results in revision to a manual or procedures, the Improvement Request should reference the document / section to be revised as well as the suggested improvement or action.

In respect to any major changes the responsible officer collates information from the Improvement Requests and provides recommendations to what action is required to rectify the problem and makes arrangements for the actions to be evaluated and endorsed by the National Aquatic Industry Committee.

A summary of any changes made will be documented in the minutes of the National Aquatic Industry Committee meeting and amendments made as per the Document Management procedure.

Review of Improvement Logs

The responsible officer shall review the Improvement Logs to determine the need for further actions on a quarterly basis.

Where the responsible officer perceives action is required to resolve the issue, particularly those identified by industry he/she may raise a separate Improvement Request Form for consideration of the National Aquatic Industry Committee.