Accidents and Accident Reporting

1. Accidents and Accident Reporting

2. Define an Accident • An accident is an unplanned or unwanted event that results in a loss of some sort. Such losses could include: • Property • Damage to machinery • Injury • Loss of life

3. Principles of Accident Reporting • In order for accidents to be reported there must be a procedure in place. Every engineering organization must have an accident reporting procedure by law. Employers must keep records of all: • Accidents • Incidents • Emergencies

4. Incidents • An incident is an event that is unexpected or unusual within the workplace. It many lead to damage or injury but not always. Here are some types of incident: • Near misses (where accidents nearly happen) • Dangerous occurrences, for example spillage of a toxic liquid • Personal incidents, such as assault

5. RIDDOR (1995) • Reporting of • Injuries • Diseases and • Dangerous • Occurrences • Regulations The reporting and recording of accidents and incidents is a legal obligation under RIDDOR

6. Employers • Employers must report certain types of injuries, dangerous occurrences and gas releases. These reports are used by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to analyse health and safety trends and to compile statistics on the numbers of different types of accident which have occurred. • You can find details of such occurrences on the HSE website www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/

7. Responsible Persons • In law, each organization must name a person who has overall responsibility for Health and Safety matters. The organization will also have other persons who have responsibility for different sections of the organization. • The responsible person must inform the HSE either by telephone or online as soon as an accident or incident occurs

8. Prevention is the Best Cure • The primary benefit of accident reporting is to help prevent similar accidents in the future. When an accident is reported and investigation is carried out to find the factors which contributed to the accident. • Once the contributing factors have been assessed and action plan can be drawn up to prevent it happening again. In this sense accident report and risk assessment work hand in hand to make the workplace safer

9. Competent Persons • A competent person is someone who has been trained or is qualified to carry out an activity. When you are in the engineering workplace you are always relying on the training and competence of your workmates. • If everybody takes Health and Safety seriously then there is a good chance you will go through your working life with little chance of an accident • Conversely, it only takes one person who flouts the rules to make the engineering workplace unsafe

10. Accident and Incident Costs • Accidents cost time and money. So in fact does the prevention of accidents. • Whilst it is relatively easy to calculate the cost of preventative measures. The cost of an actual accident is virtually impossible to calculate. Can you think of any reasons why this should be?

11. Direct and Indirect Costs • An accident will incur two types of cost: • Indirect (Production delays) • Direct (Clearing the site of any damage) I have given one example of each type of cost. There are several others you could use in your assignment.

12. Accident Costs • There are many different cost calculators available to help calculate the financial cost of an accident. Such calculators could be useful when carrying out assignments and tasks in Health and Safety • Google either ‘HSE ready reckoner’ or HSE cost calculator’ for examples of ways in which accident costs are assessed.