In my organisation yesterday there was an incident involving property damage which I have classified as a "Near Miss" because no one was injured. There has been a difference of opinion between myself and my immediate manager as he thinks the incident should be recorded as an incident and not a near miss. Group guidelines are very clear and define an accident as where someone needs hospital treatment, an incident as where a minor injury occurred and a near miss as where an injury or property damage could have occurred. I am but a simple soul and for me any kind of event that occurs is always an "incident", however we have to "classify" incidents according to whether an injury occurred or not. I would be keen to understand what people think

According to John Ridley in his much acclaimed book Safety at Work he defines an accident as as 'An unexpected, unplanned event in a sequence of events, that occurs through a combination of causes; it results in physical harm (injury or disease) to an individual, damage to property, a near miss, a loss, or any combimation of these effects'. Clearly from this an accident must result in harm or damage (the degree of harm or damage is irrelivant) A near miss is where but for pure chance no harm or damage was caused. This definition requires recognition of a wider range of accidents than those resulting in injury. Based upon this definition you are quite right to base your near miss on an incident that resulted in no injury. One point is did the 'incident' have the potential to result in an accident involving some sort of injury or loss? Even if no one was injured but there was property damage etc it is still an accident, is your manager simply looking at the term accident as something that happens to people not the wider view that it is any loss making event?

Its come up a couple of times and you'd be suprised and the difference of opinion. Basically pick a definition and stick with it. http://forum.iosh.co.uk/...aspx?g=posts&t=99697 http://forum.iosh.co.uk/...spx?g=posts&t=100520

I don't agree that your group guidelines are very clear - an occurrence with potential property damage is classed as a near miss, but there's no mention of how an occurrence with actual property damage (as in this case) is classified. I would tend to consider damage as an incident and not a near-miss, because there was an actual adverse consequence.

Grant, by your company definition this is not a near miss since property damage actually occurred!