Posted By Sharon By reporting near misses it enables you to look at figues then reduce the number of near misses, probability will then tell you this will then reduce the number of injuries that happen. Letting a near miss go unreported provides an opportunity for a serious accident to occur. Remember the same things that cause accidents cause near misses.

Posted By A Campbell What have you regarded as the best method of reporting 'near misses' (my old company called it a near hit!) I'm looking for something that is easy and not long winded as can put people off completing long forms unless they need to? Tony

Posted By John J Mark, you have mail. I once got asked 'why do you spend so much time investigating your near misses'. My answer is I'm not keen on seeing the inside bits on the outside so looking at the near misses properly helps me avoid this scenario. It also avoids the situation where you have an accident and the manager comes and 'councils' everbody, lowering moral and destroying all the work you've done, John

Posted By Sharon Its all internal reporting unless its reportable: Reportable dangerous occurrences (near misses) If something happens which does not result in a reportable injury, but which clearly could have done, then it may be a dangerous occurrence which must be reported immediately. Reportable dangerous occurrences are: Collapse, overturning or failure of load-bearing parts of lifts and lifting equipment; Explosion, collapse or bursting of any closed vessel or associated pipework; Failure of any freight container in any of its load-bearing parts; Plant or equipment coming into contact with overhead power lines; Electrical short circuit or overload causing fire or explosion; Any unintentional explosion, misfire, failure of demolition to cause the intended collapse, projection of material beyond a site boundary, injury caused by an explosion;Accidental release of a biological agent likely to cause severe human illness; Failure of industrial radiography or irradiation equipment to de-energise or return to its safe position after the intended exposure period; Malfunction of breathing apparatus while in use or during testing immediately before use; Failure or endangering of diving equipment, the trapping of a diver, an explosion near a diver, or an uncontrolled ascent; Collapse or partial collapse of a scaffold over five metres high, or erected near water where there could be a risk of drowning after a fall; Unintended collision of a train with any vehicle; Dangerous occurrence at a well (other than a water well); Dangerous occurrence at a pipeline; Failure of any load-bearing fairground equipment, or derailment or unintended collision of cars or trains; A road tanker carrying a dangerous substance overturns, suffers serious damage, catches fire or the substance is released; A dangerous substance being conveyed by road is involved in a fire or released; The following dangerous occurrences are reportable except in relation to offshore workplaces: unintended collapse of: any building or structure under construction, alteration or demolition where over five tonnes of material falls; a wall or floor in a place of work; any false-work; Explosion or fire causing suspension of normal work for over 24 hours; Sudden, uncontrolled release in a building of: 100 kg or more of flammable liquid; 10 kg of flammable liquid above its boiling point; 10 kg or more of flammable gas; or of 500 kg of these substances if the release is in the open air; Accidental release of any substance which may damage health. Additional categories of dangerous occurrences apply to mines, quarries, relevant transport systems (railways etc) and offshore workplaces. Detailed information is provided in the relevant schedules to the regulations and the Guide to RIDDOR

Posted By A Campbell You can always look to differentiate between a near miss and a dangerous occurrence, the latter is reportable under RIDDOR 95

Posted By Sharon http://www.hse.gov.uk/riddor/riddor.htm May help you out.

Posted By w.j. jones HS(g)96 is pretty self explanatory and will give you some good strong arguments against managers who weemingly have little time or understanding of liability Regards W.Jones

Posted By bill strachan1 You could try putting a positive spin on near miss reporting and call them learning events. I have recently utilised this approach and the grown ups seem to like it. Also, as one of the other posts eludes to, if you take care of the bottom of the triangle and put the findings of your learning events to good use the top of the triangle will take care of itself

Posted By John A Wright D Smith, It may be worth reading through the past accident reports, that is when accidents DID happen. Read through the investigation notes and look for comments like 'this has happened before', 'the fault was known about but not acted upon'. If you are lucky enough to find such examples you might be even luckier and find out what those accidents cost the company, etc etc. Providing REAL examples, where near miss reporting could have prevented accidents, is very useful in making a case. John

Posted By Anthony Rocheford the importance of investigating near missses can be equated to monitoring market surveys, which demonstrates how persons are responding to you product. Likewise the near miss demonstrates how employees are responding to your systems, where there is potential for accidents and losses. You can also demonstrate the direct and indirect costs of accidents and the potential savings that can accrue from monitoring and investigating nearmisses

Posted By steve hardcastle excellent posts, the silence is consent dvd is probably the best visual aid for arguing the point. in terms of behaviour mod. and human error its perhaps also worth advertising the fact that we only learn from mistakes - being right/ignoring near misses only reinforces what we already believe to be true

Posted By Merv Newman Some excellent advice above. One additional point : I try to ensure a POSITIVE response to any near-miss reporting. Too often people don't report for fear of being blamed. "Harry, thanks for telling me you nearly side-swiped the MD's Jag with your FLT. Let's have a coffee and talk about how we can prevent making it six in a row." Merv