Rank: Forum user 
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Morning everyone Q. What would be considered as common practice for reporting incident and accidents ( Not Riddor) Currently our internal investigation target is 7 days for Minor or Moderate , Major . Anyone know if a number exists for this outside of HSE / RIDDOR obligations Interested to know what others do in an organization of approximately 220 staff Thanks in advice John
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Rank: Super forum user 
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Depends upon what the staff working arrangements are (shifts, holidays) as to laying down a time target which you could then be found by an auditor to be failing against. Ideal scenario you would like the report starting on the day of incident. How it then progresses depends upon availability of the i.p. / affected parties and investigators along with an initial assessement of likely recurrence and possible impact e.g. if it was a stumble up a kerb it could wait until all parties were back at work, if it was someone nearly run over in the yard you would obviously seek to expidite. Summer is generally worse as the i.p. then investigator could be on consecutive holiday giving the very realistic scenario of a month between incident and report. You can cite seven days but make sure the exception is documented to save auditor embarrassment.
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 2 users thanked Roundtuit for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Depends upon what the staff working arrangements are (shifts, holidays) as to laying down a time target which you could then be found by an auditor to be failing against. Ideal scenario you would like the report starting on the day of incident. How it then progresses depends upon availability of the i.p. / affected parties and investigators along with an initial assessement of likely recurrence and possible impact e.g. if it was a stumble up a kerb it could wait until all parties were back at work, if it was someone nearly run over in the yard you would obviously seek to expidite. Summer is generally worse as the i.p. then investigator could be on consecutive holiday giving the very realistic scenario of a month between incident and report. You can cite seven days but make sure the exception is documented to save auditor embarrassment.
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2 users thanked Roundtuit for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user 
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I've never worked to or been measured against a target for time to complete investigations - I've always just prioritised as best I can, among the constraints described by Roundtuit.
I think an incident database I once worked with would prompt you after a certain time and tell you that the investigation was overdue, based on whatever the company policy was, but I honestly don't remember what that period was so it can't have felt that relevant to me.
You have to ask yourself what the value of a target would be. If you think that investigations are sometimes taking too long and you want to speed them up, then a target might be useful in motivating that. On the other hand, if you care about the thoroughness of the investigations, a target might be counter-productive. A target for its own sake is pointless (my personal opinion).
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Rank: Super forum user 
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Minors typically could be resolved within those 7 days, if the employee is at work then why does it need a specific person to investigate rather than whose available
For serious / major, then initial responses would be more critical, perhaps interim updates at 7 days to relevant bosses, but final report would really depend on way too many factors to set a date. Just keep the updates flowing. Keep it active and progressing us the key feature for major ones
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Rank: Forum user
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Thank you very much to everybody who took a moment of their busy time to message me their advice. The reason I put seven days on all our accident investigations was to add some weight , urgency and importance for the local responsible person to undertake a thorough and speedy investigation. As we all know as the time drifts on sometimes capturing the relevant information from witness statements photographs sometimes fades One of the reasons I put 7-day deadline to our organization was to ensure responsibility and accountability sat in the forefront all the relevant investigators I personally third party review all incidents and accidents to ensure we capture any opportunities for improvement. Appreciate the messages Regards John Edited by user 03 February 2025 14:12:17(UTC)
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Rank: Super forum user
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Hi JS For reasons already given I don't think that having any specific deadline is helpful other than to emphasise that internal investigations need to be started and progressed at speed. However, as soon as there are complexities in the investigation any timetable is likely to drift e.g. if you need to seek specialist advice. So, perhaps set a rule for when an interim report is due, and then set targets for each investigation that NEEDS time depending on the individual circumstances. Personally I wouldn't base any rules on the ACTUAL severity but rather the POTENTIAL severity........and by that I don't mean the common tendency to default to the worst case scenario which is almost always at least one dead body but a severity that you could readily envisage. So, as example, someone falls over - the worst case is that they e.g. hit their head, sustain brain injury and die. But this happens so rarely that working to that as the "Potential" severity is OTT and if you choose it you are likely to divert resources from where they could be better allocated. In contrast, the "near miss" might be the precursor of a POTENTIAL multiple casualty scenario that should probably be investigated in greater depth than many events that result in more severe ACTUAL harm.
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Rank: Super forum user
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I think you should just be grateful that you are getting any reports! If you start setting targets like it must be within a working week people will not want to report if the have “missed the deadline”. In reality certain incidents are reported quickly eg one that involves first aid or an ambulance coming on site, especially if it parks within view of the board room! Others will take time, with people being away etc. I usually get the reports through the first aiders or line managers, rather than the injured party.
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