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Accident / Incident rating or ranking system
Rank: Forum user 
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I have been asked to, instead of just reporting accident/incident numbers up through the business to "rank" them i.e. 5x5 or L, M or H etc. so that our senior team can look over a year and say we have had X amount, say 30, accidents/incidents however only 4 were serious enough to worry about the others were just basic firstaid and no lost time.
Does anyone have a good system in place they can share for rating or ranking incidents?
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Rank: Super forum user
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This is the one I used and it worked for my place of work. Yours might be different
My Rating for Severity of Incident No Injury No injury to any individual but there may be damage to equipment – basically a near miss Negligible Very minor injury to individual(s) requiring no first aid etc Minor Minor injury requiring some basic first aid (eg dressing) but no time off work or going for further medical attention eg A&E
Significant Injury requiring further medical attention eg A&E or referring to GP time off upto 7 days Substantial Injury requiring medical attention and significant time off ie more than 7 days Severe Injury life changing or resulting in death
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 1 user thanked A Kurdziel for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Contentious post coming up.
Accidents are not equal. The outcome of an incident is highly dependant on luck, so classifying on injury outcome has limited usefulness, civil claim potential excepted.
What directors need to know is 'what can catch us out. Where should we focus?'.
Incidents sbould therefore be rated, by the SP, according to potential, not actual (luck) outcome, and the scariest of these put to directors - anecdotally, summarise the event.
Rating can be done a couple of ways, one is a reverse RA - 'how bad could this have been?' against 'how likely is it to happen again?' (with worse case result).
I prefer a variation: 'how bad could this have been?' against the 'degree of management control possible' - in a public sector world, this sifts out the weird and wonderful, which might be very common but impossible to manage.
I use a rating 0-3. 0 is inconsequential potential, 3 is 'be afraid!'. Very few are 3, but these are the really close calls, the shot across the bows. Regardless of any actual injury.
This means that all incidents are considered along a spectrum of seriousness, including close calls which some treat separately to injury accidents, dont know why.
Compare these two examples (apologies to anyone who knows me).
Person 1 catches foot in swivel chair base as they stand up, falls badly, breaks hip, 6 months off work.
Person 2 reports that their shoulder was nudged by the mirror of a moving vehicle in the depot yard as they were walking no actual injury.
Which of these has the most implication for management / the organisation?
Which would traditionally get the headline?
It is the question ' so what?' we should focus on, where an opportunity for improvement, correction, whatever, could otherwise be missed because the injury wasn't bad enough.
Not all reports are equal.
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4 users thanked aud for this useful post.
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Rank: Forum user
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Originally Posted by: aud  Contentious post coming up.
Accidents are not equal. The outcome of an incident is highly dependant on luck, so classifying on injury outcome has limited usefulness, civil claim potential excepted.
What directors need to know is 'what can catch us out. Where should we focus?'.
Incidents sbould therefore be rated, by the SP, according to potential, not actual (luck) outcome, and the scariest of these put to directors - anecdotally, summarise the event.
Rating can be done a couple of ways, one is a reverse RA - 'how bad could this have been?' against 'how likely is it to happen again?' (with worse case result).
I prefer a variation: 'how bad could this have been?' against the 'degree of management control possible' - in a public sector world, this sifts out the weird and wonderful, which might be very common but impossible to manage.
I use a rating 0-3. 0 is inconsequential potential, 3 is 'be afraid!'. Very few are 3, but these are the really close calls, the shot across the bows. Regardless of any actual injury.
This means that all incidents are considered along a spectrum of seriousness, including close calls which some treat separately to injury accidents, dont know why.
Compare these two examples (apologies to anyone who knows me).
Person 1 catches foot in swivel chair base as they stand up, falls badly, breaks hip, 6 months off work.
Person 2 reports that their shoulder was nudged by the mirror of a moving vehicle in the depot yard as they were walking no actual injury.
Which of these has the most implication for management / the organisation?
Which would traditionally get the headline?
It is the question ' so what?' we should focus on, where an opportunity for improvement, correction, whatever, could otherwise be missed because the injury wasn't bad enough.
Not all reports are equal.
Right on the mark there!
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Rank: Super forum user
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The ratings I gave incidents are purely based on the severity of the injury but this was not the only score I used wheh reporting an incident. There were other scores which touched on the issues mentioned but aud is right; the potential severity of an incident is more important that the sort of injury or severity of injury. I had to explain such a case in a previous role. We had a failure of a pressure system which we reported as a RIDDOR even though in a happened in plant room and nobody could have been hurt and the same week, we had a near miss (involving firearms) which had the potential to be life threating but it was not a RIDDOR and as a result had a low profile when it was being discussed at the H&S Committee.
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Rank: Forum user
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aud - excellent post. Could not agree any more.
Also note HSE/enforcement bodies will look at potential severity...not actual outcome.
To a degree this is why you will see fines after sentencing being seen as "excessive" for what appears to be a "minor" injury, but without chance/luck it "could" have been a fatality.
If you are a part of a big organisation talk with insurers/business continuity/corporate social responsibility types.....it may have been a small electrical fire, no one got hurt, but it took out the main suply to the factory and we have not been able to manufacture anything for 3 weeks......you'll get the idea.
regards
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1 user thanked James Robinson for this useful post.
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Rank: Forum user
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Hi Most rankings I tend to come across are based on severity which then lead into KPI's (rightly or wrongly):
CAT 1 - Major Injuries / Incident (pretty much anything listed under RIDDOR) CAT 2 - Injuries that result in lost time but don't fall into the above CAT 3 - Everything else not covered by the above.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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Following on from Aud's excellent comments, one of my clients requests that I produce a succinct report to the board on what I have been getting up to in the last few months & where I see that there may be any issues.
To assist them, I write a Red/Amber/Green word at the end of each point.
I know it's a bit simplistic & subjective, but the upshot is that it concentrates their minds & they genuinely want to know what steps need to be taken next & by whom.
Works for me!
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1 user thanked Zyggy for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Just to press the point:
There is on BBC today a video of a large tree being felled.
As it crashes into the road it JUST misses a cyclist. (search in youtube either).
A scary '3' in my book, with full investigation, and high profile report/review as a given.
But based on severity of injury?
Using mobile seems to lose all the line and para breaks I carefully insert for better readability. Apologies, but WHY? Edited by user 12 October 2018 18:55:04(UTC)
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Rank: Super forum user
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Aud, I share your frustrations re para breaks etc.!
I also try to make my posts more readable & if I am using a tablet, as I am doing so now, some of my posts appear " normal" whilst others do not!
Even more weird is that they can look ok one day & they when I log back on another day, all the sentences have merged!!!
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