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Incident reporting and investigation Guidance

A robust system for reporting and investigating incidents is a fundamental element in aneffective health and safety management system. Although there are legal requirements toreport certain types of major incident, the primary reason for such an investigation is to identifythe root causes of the incident so that measures can be put in place to prevent recurrence.

It is important that employees understand that the purpose of the investigation is not to placeblame on individuals as their help will be required in the investigation.

Legal requirementsUnder the Reporting of Injuries, Disease and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995(RIDDOR) certain injuries, occupational diseases and dangerous occurrences must be

reported directly to HSE. The specific events are listed in the Approved Code of Practice forRIDDOR but in summary they include:

Fatal injuries.

Major injuries.

Incidents resulting in the injured person beingkept in hospital for 24 hours.

Incidents where the injured person is awayfrom normal duties for more than 3 days.

Specified occupational illness some of whichare general whilst others relate to a particularactivity.

Specified dangerous occurrences where notinjury may have occurred but which had thepotential for serious injury, e.g. cranecollapse, scaffolding collapse, boiler explosion.

Gas incidents.

Full details of those which must be reported are given on the HSE website,www.hse.gov.uk/riddor/guidance.htm.

The incident must be notified as soon as possible with the simplest method being by phone toHSE Incident Contact Centre on 0845 300 9933 or alternatively you can go towww.hse.gov.uk/riddor/online.htm. You will need to keep details of the report but this will bereturned by the ICC.

A copy of the incident details will be sent to the enforcing authority who may arrange to carryout an investigation.

If you have trade union appointed health and safety representatives they have a statutory rightto carry out an investigation should they wish.

Best practiceAs well as those RIDDOR incidents that must be reported to HSE, there are many moreincidents which result in minor or first aid injuries, property damage or even no loss or damage

at all (near misses). However, these may well have resulted in more serious consequences in

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other circumstances. We should ensure that all these incidents are reported and investigatedso that we can identify both the immediate and the root causes with a view to preventingrecurrence.

Some key aspects to be borne in mind when carrying out an investigationinclude:

Who should investigate?

In general this should be the injured persons manager but there may be aneed to involve others, including:

Health and safety specialist.

Health and safety representative.

Insurance company representative.

External consultant. Engineer.

When to investigate

As soon after the event as practical.

Witnesses need to have the event as fresh as possible in theirmemory.

First priority must be to deal with the injured person.

Where to investigate

If possible at the site of the incident.

This may not be possible is, for example, HSE has isolatedthe site for their own investigation or the site is not safe.

The investigation report should include the immediate and root causes of the incident withrecommended actions to prevent both short term and long-term recurrence. The seniormanagement should be made aware of the results of the investigation both from the point ofview of providing resources and in the case of future litigation.