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#1 Posted : 23 April 2009 16:01:00(UTC)
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Posted By June-bug
G'day,

What is the difference between an accident and an incident?

Thanks in advance.
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#2 Posted : 23 April 2009 16:19:00(UTC)
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Posted By ScotsAM
Technically nothing. Sometimes an accident is referred to as an unplanned event which causes injury to somebody. Incident being an unplanned event which leads to damage or property loss but effectively they're the same thing.
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#3 Posted : 23 April 2009 16:35:00(UTC)
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Posted By Phil Rose
IOSH 'principles' book says (not that I am saying this is set in stone)

Incident - is a sequence of events or actions. It does not necessarily have a definable start or finish.

Accident - is an incident plus it's consequences (injury, property damage, interruption, delay)



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#4 Posted : 23 April 2009 17:02:00(UTC)
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Posted By Ron Hunter
Accident = an incident with undesired consequences?
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#5 Posted : 23 April 2009 20:39:00(UTC)
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Posted By TonyB
Come on everybody lets get a bit technical. OK organisations use the terms to mean different things but IOSH, NEBOSH and the HSE have (almost) the same definitions

Accident - unplanned, unwanted event that results in a loss. (HSE talk only about injury or ill health)

Incident/Near Miss - unplanned, unwanted event that had the potential to cause a loss.

and for completeness -

Unsafe Condition (circumstance) - a condition that, if left uncorrected could clearly give rise to an incident or accident.

TonyB

(I await the put down!)
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#6 Posted : 23 April 2009 21:09:00(UTC)
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Posted By Safety officer
An incident is any unwanted event which can include injuries (but is also property damage, near miss etc).

An accident traditionally applies to injuries only.

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#7 Posted : 23 April 2009 23:14:00(UTC)
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Posted By Ron Hunter
incident: from the Latin in cidere = that which falls, happens,occurs. Hence my earlier stab. True to say though that the 2 terms are generally used interchangeably these days.
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#8 Posted : 24 April 2009 06:26:00(UTC)
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Posted By MARK BARRETT
I use on my site

INJURY = ACCIDENT
NO INJURY = INCIDENT

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#9 Posted : 24 April 2009 07:04:00(UTC)
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Posted By Pete48
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean different things."
Lewis Carroll. Through the Looking Glass.

In other words it all depends on why you want to know. In an H&S sense they both need reporting and investigating. An accident is easier to get reported because someone has been hurt and anyone would easily understand the need to report it. It has become comfortable over the past 20 odd years to also refer to incident reporting in order to capture those events where no personal injury has been sustained.
An FLT strikes a barrier or racking and only the rack or FLT suffers damage=incident. Same scenario only this time the load on the FLT falls and injures 2 people=accident.
The starting point is exactly the same; it is just the consequence that is different.
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#10 Posted : 24 April 2009 08:07:00(UTC)
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Posted By John D Crosby
Hi
These are the definitions used in the NHS

An incident is defined as as any occurrence that is inconsistent with the routine care of the patient or the routine operation of the organisation

A clinical incident is something that results in patients unintentionally suffering injury as the result of clinical error or malfunction of medical equipment in the course of treatment or diagnosis.

An accident is ‘an unplanned event that may result in injury or ill heath of people, or damage or loss to property, equipment, plant, materials or the environment (HSE definition)

Take care
John C
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