Good afternoon everyone.

Can anyone offer advice on different methods they use to calculate the above.

I work in manufacturing (metal packaging). We currently use the number of days lost method, but find that people with what we'd consider to be severe accidents (lost fingers, deep cuts etc.) sometimes return to work faster than people who've had less severe accidents.

Does anyone use or know of a grading system they could recommend?

Thanks in advance

Hi Ron,

The cost isn't the issue. We're a global metal and glass packaging company, so with all the differing pay rates, regs and methods of compenastion we'd never get a standard on accident costs.

It's just we feel that when we currently report on severity using the days lost calc, it's not a true reflection of the consequence of the accident.

A guy could lose a finger and return to work on light duties after a month, while someone with a back strain could be off for a lot longer.

The back will hopefully get better, the finger won't grow back, yet using our current system the back strain would be considered more severe injury.

I'm hoping someone can point me in the direction of some sort of severity grading system, if such a thing exists.

Thanks for the reply anyway.

Thanks for the answer Kate.

We use those terms when we report the accident to Group, so people are aware of how severe an individual accident is.

What I'm looking for is something we can use to create a KPI to truely reflect accident severity. We're currently using TIR which is where the number of lost days is distorting the severity of injuries.

Most companies these days use the LDFR, but you can average the accidents to a percentage by calculating the accidents by the hours worked in that month for your KPI,s

Are you aware of the US definition of 'Recordable Injury'? - it's less than lost time, but more than first aid, i.e. when treatment is needed from a medically trained person. As lost time injuries become rarer, many organisations use that is their main measure.
Full details are defined by OSHA and US-based organisations who use the definition can get awfully hung up on some of these, in their attempts to minimise their numbers of 'recordables'. But for a UK-based organisation, maybe you could adopt the principle without worrying whether a particular type of bandage is classified as what, as I have seen others do!