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Oxford  
#1 Posted : 07 June 2017 09:49:19(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Oxford

I know this may go against the grain in the wider H&S community, but I simply ask, what is the point of near miss reporting?

I work for an organisation that has been trying, for the whole of the 5 years I've worked here, to increase the number of reports sent in each month. We see a number of peaks and troughs in terms of numbers, but I see no correlation between near miss reporting quantities, and whether an accident/incident occurs or not. We have some locations that have not raised a report for over 12 months, but neither have they had any accidents or incidents in that same period...

I just wonder if we are actually just playing a numbers game so that the relevant senior managers are able to state how many reports have been made, in comparison to their counterparts. I would bet that although numbers can be quoted, the subject matter of the reports is probably unknown!

I'm off to don a fireproof suit now...

RayRapp  
#2 Posted : 07 June 2017 10:04:16(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
RayRapp

I think you have raised some legitimate points, near miss reporting is sometimes abused in order to get artificial numbers which can be quoted in HSE metrics. There is of course a legitimate side to near miss reporting, particularly an unsafe condition, which could prevent an accident or incident.

There is anecdotal evidence that near miss reporting does not decrease serious incidents. They may reduce minor accidents such as slips, trips and falls where the unsafe condition is nothing more than a tripping hazard. It is really about filtering the good, the bad and the ugly. However, an over reliance on near miss reporting can create a lot of unnecessary work and it is definately not the pancea some people would believe it is, or encourage others to believe.

 

Adams29600  
#3 Posted : 07 June 2017 10:10:24(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Adams29600

If it is just about reporting near misses, then yes it is just a numbers game and has no real value, but by encouraging near miss reporting, you get the opportunity to identify issues that can cause accidents. If  you investigate the near misses and identify and implement preventive actions then you will improve the safety of the workplace overall which will have an impact on numbers of accidents and will also improve culture when employees see action taken with regard to the near misses they raise.

Not an exact science, but improvements lead to a better working environment and by attacking the base of the accident triangle the likelihood of the serious accident occurring is reduced.

thanks 1 user thanked Adams29600 for this useful post.
WatsonD on 07/06/2017(UTC)
A Kurdziel  
#4 Posted : 07 June 2017 10:57:45(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
A Kurdziel

Near miss reporting is about encouraging engagement which is very difficult to measure in any other way: how to show that your people are interested and actively engaged in Health and Safety and not just reacting to issues as they come along. The Heinrich’s Triangle idea that there is a direct correlation between a near miss and a serious incident is wrong but if you have a level of near miss reporting then that demonstrates a level of engagement. What you do with near misses is what is important. If they just disappear into the statistical soup that is produced for each quarterly Health and Safety committee meeting then you will not get much engagement but if you follow them up and find out if they are evidence of latent flaws in the Health and Safety system then you might get more interest from your staff.   

jontyjohnston  
#5 Posted : 07 June 2017 12:42:27(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
jontyjohnston

I would respectfully point out that Henrich did not make a correlation between near misses amd serious accidents. He simply grouped A-typical accident types and observed a statistical relationship, as have others subesquently, HSE, Bird & Loftus, etc. It is the safety profession that has and continues to draw a correlation. I believe Adams has the right of it.

aud  
#6 Posted : 08 June 2017 09:05:59(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
aud

The reporting enables an initial review (significant potential or not sifting) and investigation (if appropriate) because this is the 'accident that did not actually happen'. It is NOT about numbers - that way lies madness.

Investigation may uncover a serious learning point - dodgy kit, procurement weakness, lack of skill or knowledge, poor or absent basic rules etc etc. This can then be remedied, without all the surrounding angst of a real injury, when protectionist barriers may impede any learning and correcting.

I wish someone had encouraged me to take significant close calls much more seriously when I was a rookie, escalating some real scary ones to the highest level, and not be swayed by the 'but nothing happened!' brigade. My best stories are around 'nearlies'. More comfortable to talk about and learn from.

Not all reports are equal. Grading incidents / accidents on potential rather than outcome, is a practitioner tactic (and skill) which makes close call reporting and analysis much more valid and useful. Prioritise significant events (could have killed) over lesser incidents, disconnect from injury severity, as outcome is down to chance in many cases. 

The small number with serious potential, told as short stories, highlighting significant points for improvement will provide more direction and drive to senior managers than countless graphs and tables of trivial events with no real 'so what' message which compile the normal report / presentation of incidents.

That is the point of NM reporting . . .

Mr.Flibble2.0  
#7 Posted : 08 June 2017 09:45:53(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Mr.Flibble2.0

The biggest problem I often find with Near Miss reporting tends to be what is defined as a Near Miss. 'There's some oil on the floor, I could have slipped', 'Dave nearly run me over with that Forklift', 'The Forklift crashed into the wall but no one was injured', 'Steve failed to follow the SSOW, he wasn't injured and nothing went wrong'. Near Miss, Incident, Accident?

Definitions can vary from company to company as can the level of investigation once reported. Near Misses are just often added to the stats with no action required.

Ian Bell2  
#8 Posted : 08 June 2017 10:08:46(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
Ian Bell2

Near Miss Reporting - a 'sacred cow' in the world of h&s. Greatly over rated in my experience. In 20yrs in h&s I can think of no NM reports that can be directly linked to later accidents. As #7 says what's a NM to 1 person is ignored by someone else. Another h&s statistical comfort blanket.
Tobin26388  
#9 Posted : 08 June 2017 10:28:17(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Tobin26388

I'm surprised that any H&S professional wouldn't want to encourage near-miss reporting.  If we don't report then we can't learn from the near misses. In healthcare we strongly encourage near miss reporting because we see near misses as the "free lessons", i.e. opportunities to learn from something that could have caused harm but through good fortune or intervention no harm occurred.  This is common to high-hazard industries like air travel, nuclear power etc and is widely considered to be a major part of these industries' safety successes. It's important to have a fair-blame culture also so that staff feel they can safely reprot near misses.  If an aircraft technician realises he has left a spanner inside a jet engine and he removes it, the temptation will be to keep quiet about it. But if he reports it as a near miss the airline has the opportunity to learn from it and change procedures to reduce risk of a recurrence.  This then makes a real disastrous incident less likely to happen.  Learning from near misses is more important than ever with the change in focus within the Sentencing Council guidelines on H&S offences that came out in 2016, where there is increased attention to the "harm risked" rather than just "harm suffered".   There is a good summary of Heinrich's / Bird's  triangle on the website here:  http://www.thesafetybloke.com/who-was-hw-heinrich-what-did-he-do-and-why-should-you-care/

WatsonD  
#10 Posted : 08 June 2017 11:01:52(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
WatsonD

I believe part of the problem of reporting is the confusion between a near miss and a hazard or undesired circumstance - someone mentioned a spill. A near miss has to involve and event From the HSE guidance HSG245

NEAR MISS: an event that, while not causing harm, has the potential to cause injury or ill health. (In this guidance, the term near miss will be taken to include dangerous occurances);

UNDESIRED CIRCUMSTANCE: a set of conditions or circumstances that have the potential to cause injury or ill health, eg untrained nurses handling heavy patients.

DANGEROUS OCCURANCES: one of a number of specific, reportable adverse events, as defined in the reporting of injuries, Disease and Dangerous Occurences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR).

HAZARD: the potential to cause harm, including ill health and injury; damage to property, plant, products or the environment, production losses or increased liabilities.

WatsonD  
#11 Posted : 08 June 2017 11:06:24(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
WatsonD

aud  
#12 Posted : 08 June 2017 11:29:09(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
aud

The term 'near-miss reports' - and the usual organisational process of 'fill in a form' - can lead to the number-counting (pointless) and 'what's the point' response. I loath these formal procedures. Many, if not most, of the significant (ie scary) close calls I have dealt with came via a phone call, a chance conversation, or the rumour mill. I may have completed details on a form after that, to capture the details, as these tend to be worth the bother, but if I waited for people to fill in a form, I would not have had this information, or the range of stories to tell.

Don't forget the other kind of near-miss - where there was a reported injury, (accident) but under the circumstances the injury was trivial compared to what might have happened. It is the ability to identify and classify the potential of incidents, whatever they are called, which calls for a safety practioner skill. And then being able to communicate and use the findings in a real and benficial way.

RayRapp  
#13 Posted : 08 June 2017 11:35:12(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
RayRapp

Near miss, near hit, close call...it matters not what you call it really, having a report is all that counts so you can do something about.

I recall when studing for my MSc I researched how many of my organisation's reported near misses had a formal investigation carried out - none!

Oxford  
#14 Posted : 08 June 2017 15:08:50(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Oxford

In response to the interesting responses to my original question, and to offer a bit more context, we work in the FM industry and so almost without execption any NM reports raised are at someone else's building, and are caused by the tenants/public/contractors and so it becomes more involved to be able to say that an issue is dealt with if we have to go to the client to ask them to take it up with the tenant.

In addition, a significant part of our workforce is mobile in vans. However, we get very few, if any, reports relating to near misses arising from occupational road use...how many of us, when driving at the weekend in our own cars, think that an event caused by another driver is a 'near miss' or 'unsafe act'?

In any case, to my mind a near miss report, when submitted, should be a closed document - so that the issue was noted, and dealt with, before the report was submitted. I contend that very few reports submitted, for routine issues such as slip/trip hazards, warrant a 'full investigation'.

Stuart Smiles  
#15 Posted : 09 June 2017 15:11:40(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Stuart Smiles

with reference to the cars/vans issue, have you considered in vehicle cameras, as they provide an ideal way of capturing said evidence in an easy way. 

once the issue is captured and available, the opportunity to deal with it is available. The perception may be with a car pulling out or similar that nothing can be done and it's x's word against mine. this changes with the camera. 

In the scenario on site, it's always difficult to tell a customer something is wrong, and without a confident engineer addressing the issue on site, it's probable it may go into the ignore pile, however again, with a camera phone, and email widely available, the usual would be some pictures winging their way over the internet to say, "look what I just had to deal with". If finished, that's fine, but if it's recurrent there needs to be some sort of contact, and potentially, there may be a lost customer off it. (h&s vs commercial decision). 

good luck. 

aud  
#16 Posted : 11 June 2017 12:13:18(UTC)
Rank: Super forum user
aud

There is little point in collecting evidence of 'near misses' caused by other road users - what can you  (as the employer) do about it? The only point of collecting information about incidents created by a third party on their site (and thus beyond your control) is so someone could write an angry letter / sue the third party for any loss. These may well be 'near misses' under the HSE definition, but if not within the control of yourselves there is little that can be done.

If you ask staff to report all incidents, don't be surprised when they report anything and every little thing. The determination of whether to investigate further or act on information is down to your own smart selection. The value comes from using data wisely, not merely having it.

Sgallacher27  
#17 Posted : 11 June 2017 21:34:46(UTC)
Rank: Forum user
Sgallacher27

Hi All, interesting topic and some great points made.

My personal view on Near Misses is positive to be honest. I feel that from a H&S management point of view; it's a useful tool to actively encourge employee participation in H&S matters and obviously preventing harm occurring from dangerous practics or conditions. It can also be used as a sharing and learning tool; however I don't believe the number of Near Misses submitted should be incorporated into KPIs/targets (which I have witnessed in a previous job).

The system seems to work better when direct feedback is provided to the person submitting the report and keeping them in the loop regarding what (if anything) is being done to address the issue raised in the form.. Even if no remedial action is required; a thank you seems to go a long way in getting participation from shop floor staff.

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