Accident Reporting

Accident reporting is a fundamental requirement of any business and here we try and give a guide to business owners. The fact is that despite everyone's best efforts, accidents will still happen. All workplace accidents need be reported so they can be investigated to see if any trends can established and if additional controls are required to prevent a re-occurrence.

1. Report it! It is your duty to report all workplace accidents however minor, these include Undesired Circumstances, Near Misses, Dangerous Occurrences and all injuries.

2. Accidents. Obviously the priority at this stage is to make sure the injured person receives first aid attention quickly. Once you are happy the injured person is being looked after you need to understand what happened.

3. Accident Book. The old style accident books are no longer allowed (as they contained personal information) so most new ones have detachable forms.

4. Who completes the form? Anyone can complete the form - ideally the person who was involved as they know the detail. Should that not be possible a shift supervisor or Line Manager needs to complete the form.

5. Working on a customer site? If you have an accident on a customer site the customer needs to know about it. Incident Reporting varies from site to site so the local reporting procedure needs to be established-try the local site contact or refer to a notice board.

6. Undesired Circumstance. This is when a set of circumstances have the potential to cause harm. The priority is to ensure the situation is resolved by local Line Management before an accident actually occurs.

7. Near Miss. An incident occurred and no-one was injured, You will still want to know about it. Although no one may have been injured, someone else could be next time.

8. Accident Investigation. Every accident should be investigated to establish what went wrong. Minor accidents may not require any further control measures but more serious ones could require additional processes implemented.

9. RIDDOR It is a legal requirement to report serious workplace accidents that includes broken bones or results in more than 7 days absence (inc weekends) to the Health and Safety Executive.

10. Responsibility. As you manage the business premises you have the responsibility to make sure it is safe for staff and customers. You may rent a location or sub-contract certain aspects of work but as a business owner you remain responsible for keeping the area free from hazards.

Accident reporting therefore needs to be a top priority in any health and safety plan and each member of staff, as shown above, can make an accident report.


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Nigel J Welford is a qualified Health & Safety professional and believes in making health and safety as simple as possible whilst still being effective and meeting all the regulations. For his free report "The Secret To How Health & Safety Can Improve Your Business And Profits: 7 Everyday Pitfalls To Avoid" from http://www.healthandsafetyintheworkplace.com


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