Posted By Alec Wood
I guess it depends on the time elapsed. I presume that you will have recently enforced through communication the duty on the part of employees to report accidents promptly, perhaps backed up by instruction to supervisors and to first aiders to facilitate this.

I don't think it is unreasonable to expect an accident to be reported as soon as is practicable following the event, within 24 hours in most cases, and I am sure we have all come across economies of truth, or differences of perception, when reporting them.

I would suggest that you are being entirely reasonable in your stipulations as long as they have been effectively communicated, and as long as each late reporting is considered on its own merit. It is important to emphasise recognition that most cases will be genuine, and that IP's should not feel that the requirement for witness statements is an inference that they are being untruthful - perhaps you could promote this as an "increased level of accident investigation in line with the company's drive to reduce accidents" else some cynical chaps might think you are trying to keep potential claims off the books. :-)

Alec Wood
Samsung Electronics

Posted By Laurie
I think you're on a bit of a slippery slope here.

I have had several similar cases. I simply make a note on the accident report that the report was made late, thereby degrading the investigation, making similar remarks on the RIDDDOR report if raised.

It is up to the insurers, and the courts if it gets that far, to use this information as they see fit.

I really don't think that it is wise for you to decide which accidents you will record, and which you will not!

Laurie

Posted By JAMES MM
Martin,
I work in construction and under CDM regs (and our site rules) all accidents must be reported immediately either by the person or his supervisor. Failure to do so will mean disciplinary action against the supervisor.
A few months ago we refused a claim that an accident took place on one of our sites. A letter dated 10 days after the accident was sent by the company. We acknowledged receipt of the letter but contested that the accident took place in our workplace.
We invited the manager, supervisor and claimant for an interview (they had by now left site) in the reply to confirm the details of the accident but they did not appear. No claim was submitted even though the person injured was eventually off work for 6 weeks.

A top tip is on Monday mornings have someone watch people enter you place of work for any hobblers or even better have a security camera trained on the entrance. This stops sports injuries from the weekend becoming workplace accidents.

regards

Jim

Posted By Peter Longworth
I think that a big problem with the way we record things is that we always call the place where records are made an "accident book". This is almost tantamount to admitting that an accident took place right from the start. Maybe we should start calling it a record of injuries. Any resulting investigation would first have to decide whether the injury was as a result of an accident at work or not

Posted By Laurie
Just as a follow on to Peter's response, we renamed our accident report form as an incident report form. Believe it or not as a bonus I found that people gradually started using it to report near misses

Laurie