Transcript Accidents and Accident Reporting

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