Hi, just thought I would mention this although it has probably already been mentioned previously. I work on many large construction & industry sites throughout the UK. Since my graduation to IOSH I have taken a whole new perspective of Health & Safety. It seems the latest trend on accidents on construction sites & industry is to not declare accidents & near misses in the workplace or have a cap on the number reported. I have encountered this on many occasions on sites where accidents have occurred, however when reported to the site managers, safety departments or accident centres, you are informed to travel to alternative areas outside of the site for treatment and not to declare how the injury came about. I wish I could say this was one or two large contractors; however that would be lie as they all appear to be doing the same. It appears the image of low accidents in the workplace is highly sought after as a public image. I also know the large contractors lean on the sub contractors in these instances to not report the accidents. This thread could “shake the tree” in challenging the purpose of accident statistics. Surely the purpose of declaration & investigation is ultimately future avoidance of the exact accident (what could we learn from this is often quoted). Why do we accept this fraud when it comes to statistics? Any thoughts welcome? Can we change the culture of negativity towards those that do declare accidents & near misses?

I am sad to say i almost agree with Chrisp, i am talking from experience, i had a major accident on a large site, run by a large company, i feel almost 20 feet through scaffolding on a building site, i completed the accident book with both the main contractor and the site agent. No investigation took place, and when i had no option but to put in a claim the site accident book went "missing". It does go on, and i have always thought that the figures produced for accidents is false. I know for a fact that my accident was never recorded, and i cant be the only missing statistic.

Im not saying that these practices dont occurr,but i dont believe that Major Contractors endorse these. As for "capping" statistics and prohibiting reporting i do not accept that this is widespread practice. again i pose the question; what action have you personally taken to prevent the above,(you have stated that you witnessed)? Further to the above it is my belief that most site operatives have the necessary knowledge of the potential claims that may arise and would be making sure their accident was reported in a correct manner!.

Interesting reading Peter. I would value any reply from my learned collegues pertaining to my original question; what was the outcome of challenging these practices? Kind Regards, Mick.(ever disillusioned Site Manager).

Yes Peter you are so right - I have worked in the O&G sector and the times we see X million man hours worked on a project with no lost time injury is phenomenal!!! Would that we could only match those stats in the UK - laughing!! Oh by the way - I saw one specific instance where a guy died and the company said that they still didn't have a lost time injury "as he wasn't coming back" and he only actually "died in hospital" not on the site!!

I worked on a construction project (circa 1200 people on site daily) that changed CM half way through (only time I've known it to happen) and we were reporting between 15 and 20 1st aids per week. Enter new management and a new safety manager who set about cementing his reputation as a "miracle worker" by removing the minor treatments from the reports. They still happened, they were still recorded but now they didn't appear on the official documents/stats etc. The result was confirmation of his "miracle worker" status. Don't misread this, things like injuries requiring a clean and plaster slipped off the reports, nothing major was "lost". I always felt disappointed that this happened because now people were more jumpy when reporting and this new safety manager ended up looking better than he was. I'm sure he got a pat on the back -"nice job"- for his trouble but our safety culture suffered as a result. That's life...

There are many reasons why contractors may feel a need to 'massage' there accident data - not least because you get what you pay for....many major clients will use accident rates as a blunt tool during tender shortlisting - and those who honestly try to report fully and factually will lose work to the cheats.... If the money says "don't report", then it doesn't matter how many nice words are hung on the gate, accidents won't get reported! I have worked for organisations (clients and contractors) which trumpeted their accident stats, and their 'blame free' culture.... Where anyone reporting even a minor accident or injury was pilloried harangued and belittled by very senior management. Most employees avoided reporting because of this bullying, and those incidents which were reported were sometimes 'reclassified' so they did not appear in the 'official' statistics. What did I do? After a couple of years shouting from the rooftops? I left. There's no changing some people So - on the project I am now working (as client safety manager), we have nearly finalised the contract documentation for the construction phase (design nearing completion after six years....). Against stiff and initially unyielding opposition from the teams' project manager and the commercial manager I have managed to ensure that our contract KPIs do NOT include rewards for not reporting accidents.... And the routine project reporting metrics are nearly all positive things within the direct control of the contractors management (rather than being accident - based). Will this act to create an 'open, honest' relationship, where accidents reported are genuinely taken as learning opportunties? I don't know, but that's my intention! Watch this space. Steve

We live in a day and age where contracts/bonuses etc are awarded on the basis of having a good safety record/meeting safety targets. Say no more really.

Well said NigelB. Must also mention about corporate governance and corporate social responsibility...what a load of tosh that is too.

So to summarise, we all know this goes on and we accept the flaws in the current system? Surely from an objective point of view this means the CDM regulations, RIDDOR & the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 are not working. From a distance one cannot see how health & safety and be taken seriously when it comes to accidents, injuries & near misses when the whole data compiled is flawed. How can health & safety really move forward when the fundamentals are wrong? Accident prevention is not at the centre of basic health & safety. As long as these bad practices continue, H.S.E. statistics are misleading. I believe a new structure should be introduced placing the duty right at the doorsteps of the safety advisors, managers, consultants. Health & safety should be driven by those in the know, not those who hold the purse strings! Licensing is the key. Think of it, security for night clubs are licensed, would you say this has improved the practices? The answer is most likely yes. License all health & safety practitioners; enforce all companies over a certain size to have a licensed health & safety practitioner. This would then place a duty of integrity on the licensed practitioners to perform their duties to the book. Failure to do so could result in termination of the license or a point scoring system. This would then make it difficult for those that are knowingly flaunting the system to continue. IOSH stands for something, a community of professionals with dedication to a goal, surely enough is enough.

I have always found that statistics are unreliable and irrelevant to safety management apart from those stats compiled by yourself about your own company! I know that many safety professionals like to obsess about benchmarking their performance against similar company stats but has been said many times, their are lies,.......... On licencing, I do not understand why a safety officer should carry the can for the under/ un-reporting of injuries when it is the employers that have that responsibility and at the end of the day, they pay the wages and control the workplace. We already have laws in place that require employers to have competent advice on health and safety and also laws in place that require employers to notify injuries, diseases and dangerous occurrences so why not simply enforce them?

There needs to be a legal duty to report all workplace accidents and where appropriate investigate accidents. However, the duty holder must be the employer and not put the onus on an employee such as a h&s practitioner. It is clear that if safety performance is driven by financial incentives then there will be under reporting. Not sure how you would go about changing this in relation to tenders. The whole process of tendering for projects is flawed because it is normally the lowest price which wins. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out that low tenders also often equates to poor safety measures.

DHSS doesn't exist anymore. In any case it hardly helps if the patient is told to tell the doctor that he/she suffered the injury at home etc. Illness benefit (sickness benefit) is hardly ever claimed, and then only after several workdays off work. It (illness/sickness benefit) is changing from a "sick-note" to a "fit-note". You will then have the dubious honour of attempting to find a place to work for someone deemed unfit for SOME work but fit for OTHER work. According to the HSE something like 50% (+) of accidents/incidents are not entered onto the "accident" book, or in many cases now the "accident database". How are you going to collate stats that you do not have ? This is not an accidental omission we (I) am talking about, this is deliberately not inserting the (legally) required information onto the (legally) necessary record and also deliberately not informing the health professionals concerned as to the cause of the injury. And that is just injury, it does not include things like long-term health problems caused by failure to medically supervise employees in hazardous work conditions like paint spraying and/or welding (etc).

On an historical note. The Social Security and Housing Benefit Act 1983 destroyed the then national accident database. It did so by: 1 Abolishing the premium industrial injury benefit which was higher than sickness benefit. 2 Introducing direct reporting of sickness absence with the implementation of Employers Statutory Sick Pay, which still exists today. After several years of negotiation – between 1975 and 1979 - between the DHSS [when it existed] and the HSE and others, they agreed a common reporting form. This was part of the new Notification of Accidents and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1980. The higher premium on industrial injury benefit gave an incentive to the worker to record the incident in the accident book. The claim – if successful - was paid by the State. In the 1980 reported injuries were 272,822 which rose to 412,498 the year after the Notification of Accidents and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1980 applied. The big increase was in over 3 day injuries because the DHSS handed on the form to the HSE, linked to employees receiving greater payment for industrial injury. Indeed Sir Patrick Mayhew, in a House of Commons Debate on the 29th July 1980 said one of the reasons for the new regulations was: ‘.... they seek to ensure that information about more minor accidents is obtained as efficiently and at as low a cost as possible by using current DHSS procedures.’ He also reflected on paragraph 412 of the Robens Committee Report: “At paragraph 412 Robens recommended that: Priority should be given to the task of devising a standard form of accident report suitable for the purposes of both the Department of Health and Social Security and the proposed Authority for Safety and Health at Work [HSC/E], so that employers would need to report an accident only once". Within another year, this long recommended solution to under-reporting was destroyed by the Tories introducing ESSP. That is why you cannot find any under 3 day statistics for the years 1983, 1984 and 1985. And - at a stroke - they handed all the administartion cost of ESSP to the employer. Yet another great example of a Conservative administration helping business reduce regulatory 'Red Tape'. Cheers. Nigel

Apologies for moving your posting in a slightly different direction but I felt that I needed to ask the question in order to stimulate further debate. Given that the HSE has previously publicly stated that they believe that their is approximately 30% under reporting in relation to RIDDOR (please dont ask me where I read this because I would have to say that I genuinely cant remember). Would it make sense, if inspectors were to be given the freedom to use their local knowledge by accepting the content of the report that they believe are accurate and show how control measures are being introduced to prevent a reoccurrence, rather than religiously following up inspections, not the most serious of course of course. Does the membership believe that this would this increase or decrease the level of reporting? Discuss.