What is an incident reporting procedure and why should you have one in the workplace? All workplace occurrences should be reported internally and thoroughly examined to implement preventative measures. In some cases, events must also be reported to the proper authorities. Some key actions must be taken to ensure accidents are handled effectively and comprehensively. These will assist you in reducing stress and the negative consequences of workplace occurrences.
Injuries, sickness, property damage, and near misses are all incidents. As a result, an incident reporting procedure ensures that workers who become ill or injured at work receive the care and assistance they need. It also aids in the recording and tracking occurrences to help in the management and improvement of preventative actions.
What should be included in an Incident Report Procedure?
To keep your incident report factual, you'll need to understand the various information you might collect during the reporting and investigation process. Here is the list of information to keep in mind when you're documenting an incident:
General information: This includes essential and valuable information like time, date, specific location, etc., which also helps if further investigations are required.
Environment or setting: Physical and environmental variables that may have contributed to the occurrence and any possible dangers discovered in the incident location.
- Affected individuals: The names of those involved, as well as their titles or positions and their specific department
- Injuries and severity: this includes the kind of injury experienced, its severity, and the affected bodily organs.
- Equipment and property damages: Includes the assets, facilities, materials, and damaged tools as a result of the incident.
- Witnesses- pertains to the comments and statements made by those present at the time of the occurrence.
- Administered treatment: This is the initial care, help, or drugs given to the affected person.
- Actions by the people involved: What did the people involved do during the occurrence of the incident?
Purpose of incident reporting
The practice of documenting all workplace injuries, close calls, and accidents is all that's involved in incident reporting. No matter how slight the injury is, an incident report should be prepared at the time of the event. Incident reporting aims to keep track of an occurrence, figure out what caused it, document any measures established, and notify stakeholders.
It can be used to investigate and analyze a situation. An incident report contains the fundamental cause and corrective measures to mitigate the risks and prevent such occurrences in the future. These reports can also be utilized as safety records, indicating possible dangers and uncontrollable hazards discovered in the workplace.
Generally, it helps:
- Prevent more severe accidents
- Improves workplace health and safety
- Saves time and resources lost when injuries occur
- Boosts the overall well-being of the organization and staff
The 6 steps of incident reporting
- Capture all fundamental information
You need to answer the following questions: What type of injury? Was it nonfatal or fatal? How was the environment? Looking at the location and when did the incident took place? Were there any property damages? What was the task being handled when the incident happened?
- Document any injuries and damages
Describe in detail the outcomes of the incidence. Any injuries or damages caused? It's also recommended you provide some photos if necessary.
- Identify all the affected individuals.
Record the names of the personnel involved and their work titles, shift schedules, and any pertinent information.
- Identify the witnesses and note their statements.
Write down the names of those who were there at the time of the occurrence and their statements. It will be useful in understanding the pattern of events that led to the occurrence and give a sense for whetherthe impacted employees conduct was a cause of the damage or injury. The remarks of witnesses might be taken down directly or paraphrased. Ensure to have the witnesses sign off on their testimonies to ensure that the information recorded is accurate.
Take action
This refers to the steps that should be followed after an occurrence. It involves corrective measures that will prevent the incident from happening again. The incident report's corrective measures section might also include the steps you'll need to finish the report.
Close your report
After completing the preceding phases, you may gather management's feedback on the incident. Thus, as the reporter and somebody from higher management, you should sign off on the accountability measures. This will confirm that the information in the incident report is accurate and unquestionable.
Incident reports must be kept in good order since they are crucial documents for any organization. It might take a long time to write an incident report, and it necessitates thorough documenting of the occurrence. But understanding the aim of incident reporting, on the other hand, will assist the organization in determining the underlying cause of an event and implementing corrective actions to mitigate all possible risks.
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