Accident Investigation
& RIDDOR
Investigating any accident can be daunting at first, clearly, you wouldn’t want to make mistakes. We will undertake a full investigation and generate a report with recommendations from the findings.
Health and Safety Audits
It’s unfortunate, however, accidents and incidents do occur in the workplace. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, regulation 5, requires employers to plan, organise, control, monitor and review their health and safety arrangements, to ensure any and all accidents are formally recognised as such, and also to ensure a proper follow up to minimise the likelihood of a repeat occurrence has taken place.
An essential part of this process is the conduct of health and safety investigations.
A reactive investigation will discover the cause of an accident or incident and figure out what’s being done to prevent it. It can help identify causes that are immediate, underlying, or root. By identifying these contributors and working to eliminate them, you’re able to stop something similar from happening again.
More information regarding accident investigation can be found on the HSE website.
Key Principles
Finding the root cause of an accident is vital in ensuring that future prevention is possible.
Jumping to Conclusions
Never jump to conclusions, the thing that caused the accident or incident is never normally the root cause.
The Five Why's
Always question further, if something happened, ask why. Then ask why again and again until you reach the root cause. This takes experience and skill to consistently get right.
Why Integral Safety?
We can undertake the investigations on your behalf. This follows with a full report, leading to a root cause analysis, recommendations for practise and procedural change, and training of any changes required to all stakeholders.
Next Steps
Integral Safety Ltd can look at your business and advise the best ways that you can not only prevent accidents from occurring but also, monitor your practices to ensure you know when things could be going wrong.
Additionally, we recommend that you let us train some of your team members to become safety mentors. As a result, they become the example of good practice that others will usually follow.
How Can We Help?
Inspect
We will inspect and examine the incident location and document the relevant evidence
Interview
We will thoroughly conduct witness statements and interview any injured parties.
Report
Following the investigation, a full report will be compiled and identify any necessary changes to be made.
A Strong Company Ethic
We always work with the client, the law, and the IOSH Code of Conduct in mind. Our strong company ethic is to ensure regulatory compliance as well a good, simple, honest advice.
The process of embedding a health and safety culture can take time, we will guide, but also take the journey with you.
FAQ
Why it is so important to fully investigate accidents and incidents
Compensation claims can and do happen. Some are legitimate and others can be bogus.
By following a thorough investigation, you can determine a root cause and factually evidence whether there is really a claim to answer.
Your insurers will request a lot of key information in the event of a claim. A good investigation will have started to compile these facts and details well in advance of a claim coming in.
Remember, a person can make a personal injury claim for up to three years. Looking back for this information after such a long time can be very difficult.
Morally, you want to know that you don’t have this happen again. You surely want to know that your workforce isn’t in harm or there is more you can do.
A good accident investigation will uncover the hidden hazards and bring them to your attention so you can do more.
You do have a legal duty to ensure the safety of your workers and other persons. You are required to investigate the cause of an accident and take positive measures to prevent a re-occurrence.
An accident costs money, you can limit those costs as far as possible. You may only consider a claim cost but what about:
- Repairs to plant and equipment
- Extra wages, overtime and temporary labour
- Lost time
- Sick pay
- Damage or loss of products and materials
- Production delays
- Investigation time
- Fines
- Fees for intervention (FFI’s)
- Loss of contracts
- Legal costs
RIDDOR is The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013. Certain incidents are required to be reported to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), these include specified injuries:
- fractures, other than to fingers, thumbs and toes
- amputations
- any injury likely to lead to permanent loss of sight or reduction in sight
- any crush injury to the head or torso causing damage to the brain or internal organs
- serious burns (including scalding) which:
- covers more than 10% of the body
- causes significant damage to the eyes, respiratory system or other vital organs
- any scalping requiring hospital treatment
- any loss of consciousness caused by head injury or asphyxia
- any other injury arising from working in an enclosed space which:
- leads to hypothermia or heat-induced illness
- requires resuscitation or admittance to hospital for more than 24 hours
- Over seven days off work
There are also:
- Occupational diseases
- Dangerous occurrences
