Posted By Delwynne When we started looking at this issue we decided the first place to start was to try & find out why near misses weren't being reported currently. This might be for a number of reasons: 1) Do employees understand what a near miss is? 2) Do they understand why it is important to report them? 3) Is there an easy way for them to be reported which everyone understands? 4) Are near misses followed up (if people report & nothing happens they won't report again) Once we had begun to understand why near misses weren't being reported the ways to increase reporting were obvious. They included lots & lots of training, for all the employees on identifying near misses & reporting them but the most important (and most challenging) step was motivating & empowering managers to act on the reports recieved. The biggest challenge is staying on top of the feedback loop once you've increased the number of reports received!! Good luck.

Posted By David Bannister Hi Claire, perhaps it may help to ask yourself "what's in it for them?" or more conventionally "how important do they perceive it to be?" with the "they" in this case being the entire workforce including senior management. The answer will depend on a variety of factors including company culture, management attitude to H&S, supervisors responses, completions, other H&S issues that worry them, recognition (positive or negative), individual attitudes towards raising H&S standards, team strength... The US way is to use the carrot of a reward (vouchers, meals etc) but I am not convinced of the value of this approach. However it may work for you.

Posted By Son of SkyWalker Sarah Did your success lead to a reduction in actual accidents? Son of skywalker

Posted By Smiff In my experience, if you can be seen to be doing something with the information there is morelikelihood of people reporting. I issue "lessons learned" which are one-page colourful, oftem humourous articles following real incidents and near-misses alike. These are popular with our staff, registration body and clients and demonstrate clsing the loop in incident learning.

Posted By Rob34 Claire, Actively seeking the 'Near Miss' also helps to get the message across. Seeing things out of the ordinary andd asking questions. But as already stated above, its how they are acted on that really gives the right message, even if it is one-to-one feedback. Rob

Posted By Darren (Daz) Fraser Hi Claire We run a near miss system that is blame free and name free. It is called SOD IT See IT Own IT Do something about IT boxes are placed in canteens and other locations with blank forms by the side, employee can report near miss without putting their name, boxes are checked daily. Hopefully the employee who sees the near miss carries on with own it and do it, but this may not be the case, all are followed up and passed onto relevant department to resolve, progress report must be sent to H&S dept within 1 week of notification and closure within 1 month. All employees that put their name down are entered into a monthly draw for a nominal £5 voucher of their choice. It is a relatively new system, so is a bit early to tell how effective it will be in the long run, however our reporting has increased by around 90% compared to previous system. As mentioned by previous posters we held toolbox talks (5 - 10 mins) on what is a near miss and an accident to introduce the new system. We also made certain that all employees understood that they were not to blame, it was a system failure if they encountered a near miss, this may have also helped with reporting, previously it was the culture of "if I tell I will be blamed." I am not saying we are perfect, far from it, we just try to encourage good practice. Good luck and keep us posted of how you get on.