Chris Bennett

King’s Centre for Risk Management
Department of Geography
King’s College London
Strand
London WC2R 2LS

Tel: +44 (0)1487 83048
Email: chris.bennett@kcl.ac.uk

Chris Bennett has been a part-time PhD student at King's College London, the King’s Centre for Risk Management (KCRM) since 2007. With a first degree in psychology, Chris has worked mainly on research involving the qualitative analysis of change and development in organizations, and evaluation of service delivery. Most of this work was undertaken within the NHS and for the Department of Health, during 13 years as a senior research fellow at Warwick Business School, University of Warwick.

Currently working freelance, Chris has an honorary contract at Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. Work undertaken for the Trust has included development and implementation of a new type of chart which presents cumulative fluid balance in a simple and visually compelling way, reducing the possibility that dangerous levels of over- or under-hydration will be overlooked.

The role of changing perceptions of risk in mediating prioritisation of response to multiple, qualitatively different hazards: a study of factors contributing to the aetiology of adverse events in hospitals.

Supervisors: Professor Ragnar Löfstedt and Dr Henry Rothstein

Chris's PhD research is based on another on-going project for Peterborough and Stamford Hospitals. It involves development of a typology of the multiple and qualitatively different hazards perceived by hospital staff in their working environment, and examination of the conditions under which a perceived hazard concerning risk to others does or does not become a priority for action. It is hoped to increase understanding of the extent to which perceptions of risk may impact on and contribute to adverse events involving patients in hospitals.

Main focus: Risk Perception, Adverse Events, Patient Safety

While at Warwick, Chris authored and co-authored a number of journal articles and chapters in books, and was also co-author of a book looking at the management of crisis and change in the NHS, based on research into the development of services for HIV/AIDS. (Bennett C and Ferlie E (1994) Managing crisis and change in healthcare: the organizational response to HIV/AIDS Buckingham: Open University Press)

This work led to an increasing interest in the impact of perceptions of risk in responding to multiple hazards and a paper in Safety Science (Bennett C (1996) Decision making in conditions of risk and uncertainty: the response to HIV/AIDS Safety Science Vol 22 No 1-3 pp 147-162) which sets out the early thinking and analysis which was the direct precursor to the current PhD research