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?

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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.

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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.