Posted By Neil D Near misses within my company are never 'brushed away', quite the opposite we activeley encourage ALL near misses to be reported through. I do not agree either that personnel do not report as it is seen as not being 'macho'. At inductions for all staff DVDs are shown on the importance of near misses, we even run a competition on the subject. Every near miss is discussed in length at H&S meetings and remdial actions adressed and followed through. In short the reporting of near miss is constant issue thats profile is being raised all the time, over the past 2 years we have seen an increase in the reporting 10 fold this is through postive camapigns and mentoring of staff. By the way I work in construction/maintenance

Posted By ScotsAM A lot of workers just want to come in, earn a wage and go home again. Near miss reporting may be viewed as 'unneccesary' paperwork.

Posted By Neil R I think you need to generalise less, most of the major construction companies (including the one i work for) have good success in the reporting of near misses. Near miss reporting is promoted as important as accident reporting, mechanisms for the reporting of near misses exist in one form or another within the systems these companies use. Maybe some of the smaller construction companies don't have as much success with this, mainly due to cost etc, but making statements such as 'macho' culture, poor communication and negative culture is just tarring us all with the same brush and perpetuating a myth. Why not compare a construction company that has good success with reporting and subsequently their accident record with one that has had less success.

Posted By Jay Joshi The most likely reason for lack of reporting could be the "paperwork"/"procedure" involved and the perceived fear, I repeat perceived fear of being identified as a potential for "blame". Add to this the number of site operatives who cannot speak or write English and you perhaps have the answer. I do not think Wates is a "small" Principal Contractor.

Posted By justgossip Good question, we work for three blue chip companies in construction. near miss reporting is way down the list of H&S issues. the three companies take H&S very serious and put a lot of energy into this area. what I find most curious is that when H&S reaches ground level, on the site with the workers, the results are somewhat poor. On one of the sites, prior to the H&S visit the agent stops most work the day before and prepares for the visit. On another site they are all scared witless about H&S inspections as a failure to pass will lead to job prospects going down like a brick. At site level i do not see the agents firing off near miss as this would reflect badly for on going employment. For my own company I have introduced a £50 bonus for reporting of near misses. So far no one has reported a thing. ONE of the reasons is that the workers have been in this game since year dot and anything less then a major calamity would not be regarded as a near miss. Attitude. hence i need to educate and it is taking a huge effort to achieve this. I have recently had a few calls from the foreman asking safety questions so i am slowly getting there. if i reported near misses to the PC our company would rapidly run out of work. Un palatable but true. Given my limited exposure and experience i would consider that near misses are not reported because: 1.they are not recognised by the operative 2.if seen they are not percieved as dangerous 3.reporting near misses would have you looking like lighthouse and people do not want to be a lighthouse. 4.job prospects could be a bit ify 5.reporting a near miss could lead to serious delays in progressing the work.This is not going to get you a pat on the back for well done 6. not reporting creates a lot less hassle garry

Posted By Bob Youel another aspect to consider is the way construction staff are employed as this has an effect e.g. many workers are self employed, employed for the job only / parts of a job only and similar such circumstances as against people in more secure long term jobs. Additionally they see the press re 'companies holding data' on construction staff and using it to stop people becoming employed so they think that reporting is not the done thing as will jeopardize they next job hunting exercise Whilst there are many good clients out there that evaluate accident / near miss reports etc as part of the tender process most, in my personal opinion, just look at the bottom line so a 'bidder' can put in what they like re H&S stats as it will not be adequately checked

Posted By hooperman3 Bringing this thread back up to the top because this is a subject that I am currently working on.. Firstly I do not agree with Mark on this one, there needs to be a clear understanding on what constitutes a “near miss” report, my interpretation of what Mark is saying is that an incident has occurred therefore this should be investigated and closed out accordingly. My understanding of near miss reporting is that if one promotes this subject as part of general H&S awareness on site then statistically one would expect a reduction of incidents and accidents. How often have we heard the comment “there is an accident waiting to happen” and done nothing about it…?? If this process is promoted within the workplace as good practice then I strongly believe that statistically we would reduce accidents. Even though I work in Quality Control I am aware of the paperwork and time involved in accident/incident investigation and that it can be a tiring task for the individual involved with near miss reporting the documentation is very minimal. The biggest problem in construction is getting over to the workforce what it is all about and providing training accordingly

Posted By water67. Hi, for reference figures on near miss reporting on a building site you could look at the study (the cost of accidents at Work HS(g)96), conducted by the HSE around 1993. It looked closely at near misses, accidents etc. in a range of industrial settings including a building site. Using the bird accident triangle: 1 major injury, 56 minor, but significantly 3570 near misses. Cheers

Posted By gerry d There seems to be two camps here...the cynics and the enthusiasts. I can see it from both sides, I really can. Firstly, I am pleased to say that I work for an organisation that promotes the reporting of `near misses`, however, I definitely believe that there is still a significant level of under reporting. It`s hard to get the guys to buy into and needs continual and sustained promotion. Similarly, because we are a contractor we experience variations from client to client (and site to site). The comment about people on short term contracts, temporary work, peripatetic, etc. is a common response (excuse, even) given as to why `near misses` may not get reported. But my argument to this is that the majority of these people will be moving onto other sites and locations where the safety culture is very similar, so why should they behave any differently? Are there radical differences in the way safety is managed. Doubtful. Is there a policy in place to encourage `near miss` reporting? Almost always. Is the policy promoted and well managed? Probably not. So whoever used the word `attitude` is spot on, the attitude of the person(s) responsible for managing health & safety is just as important as the attitude of the people doing the work. Thomas, maybe a good suggestion would be to study a cross section of businesses/ organisations both large and SME to gauge differences.