Posted By Anwar Afzal
Julia

i would recommend you have a form for accident/incident and near misses.

This form should be simple but effective and should be distributed to the line managers and ensure that they organise meetings or toolbox talks highlighting the neccassity to complete these forms and return them to you

Then you can compile a database for them

Hope this is helpful

Posted By Julia R
To clarify:

We have an accident book, and people are supposed to record accidents and near misses.

Accidents, which are pretty rare, do get recorded, but there are NO near misses in the book, which suggests to me that even though we have the proper procedure in place, no one uses it. I need to give people a reason to record near misses.

Posted By Tabs
This is an old problem with no easy answers I'm afraid.

An important factor in getting people to tell you about near misses is the effect a report has. If they think it will simply be a record of an event, they will not report. They have to believe that something can and WILL be done to help.

Maybe there is something you can use to reverse the process? For example, when the next accident happens, correct the fault - but then approach people to ask whether they ever saw it happen before, wether it nearly happened to them ... and then publish a big public result...

Maybe it goes like this...

"On 24th June "X" tripped over a loose tile and suffered a bad cut to the knee. The tile has been replaced. Investigations show that between May and the accident four other people tripped without injury, no near-miss reports were filed, so "X" tripped too. Please report near misses and we will do our best to prevent injuries" Place it near the accident site.

Maybe a few of these would change behaviour? (I haven't tried it, but now I have considered it, maybe I will).

Posted By Booney
Julia,

I have a very similar problem to yours in that our guys are also reluctant to cease work "to fill in another form". In an effort to encourage more reporting, I have included a section on the form for action by the relevant manager which is then fed back to the originator to show that something has been done.

Also, (as in July's edition of HSW), I have suggested to the powers that be to offer an incentive to report - every time a near miss is reported, actioned and a hazard removed or reduced, a £1 donation goes to charity which I personally believe should be a very cost-effective method for reducing accidents and that is how I have 'sold' the idea but this has yet to be implemented.

Incidentally, the HSE define a near miss as 'any incident that under slightly different circumstances such as timing, could have resulted in an adverse incident' - too wordy for my liking, perhaps readers may have a snappier version?

Regards

Booney

Posted By JAI
copy and paste the link
already discussed earlier

this info might help

www.iosh.co.uk/index.cfm...iew&forum=1&thread=19746
Jai

Posted By Tyler
All,

The reporting of near misses has been an objective of mine over the last year. In that year I have increased Near Miss reporting from 15 reports a year to over 400 reports a rear (compared to 70 reported accidents on a site employing 300 people in FMCG manufacturing).

Many of the comments already made are absolutely correct and it is very tricky. However, it can be done!

Obviously the culture needs to be right before you start. But this can be (and needs to be) worked on in order to make it a success.

Near Misses are described colloquially as the 'incident with the X factor' (it was promoted heavily during the time when the TV show was on). Basically, if someone says, 'Oh SXXX!! I nearly....' then it's a near miss!

We also encourage hazard spotting to be reported in the same way . Examples: 'The carpet is lifting up and someone could trip over it' is accepted as well as ' I nearly tripped over the carpet' (This stops the perception that if they report it it may be construed as them being dumb). An unsafe act is also reported as a near miss eg 'I saw Andy going into the the xyz department without his safety boots on' is also accepted as it reminds managers that constant reminders are required and a one off brief is not adequate.

It is importnat to ensure that if a report is submitted no one will get in trouble and something will happen to correct it. (a few quick wins early on generally gets people on side).

Getting Management buy in (as well as the shopfloor)is absolutley vital so you must wax lyrical about the benefits to them (which are very different to the benefits to the shop floor).

Finally, whenever a report is submitted you MUST provide feedback on how its progressing especially if its a longer term solution. otherwise youlose interest very quickly.

Running paralell to this it is important to also have a positive observation scheme running. Such a scheme highlight good practices and alerts Managers to the good things that happen also.

In a recent company opinion survey 85% of colleagues were of the opinion that near miss reporting is a way to improve health and safety across the site and 91% of people were of the opinion that the company cares about the health and safety of the employees. This is the highest it has ever been (and is 20% higher thanthe last survey). So it is effective if it works!


I hope this helps.

Tyler