Hi All could anyone please define .An accident .An incident I am in the throws of updating a policy and if anyone could help I am attempting to prepare a list of potential work related incidents cheers Dave

We use the following definition... Accident: An unplanned, uncontrolled event which has resulted in injury to persons. Incident: An unplanned, uncontrolled event that did not cause injury to persons, but could have or resulted in damage to plant or equipment.

I was always told to avoid the use of the word ACCIDENT as it implies an event over which we had no control ( this was working for an american petro chemical company ). The term incident was used for any unplanned event that resulted in either a near miss or an injury.

Guru - is your definition of an incident not more in line witha 'near miss' (or more correctly, 'near hit')?

This is one of those horses for courses questions. For our part, an Accident is any injury to a person, an Incident is anything else, near miss, an actual event not causing injury or even just a hazard identified (and hopefully controlled before it becomes an accident). Not suggesting for one minute that this is "correct", just the way it works for us.

Due to varying degrees of definitions etc, even in respected safety publications, you need to get your definitions and then be consistent. Since we use the OSHA system for internal/corporate reporting, we use:- Accident An event has occurred and somebody has been hurt. The sub-categories for accidents are:- First Aid Medical Treatment Case Restricted Work Case Lost Time Case Incident An event has occurred and there has been damage to equipment or a spill has gone beyond the point at which material can be recovered. Near Miss An “event” has occurred but nobody has been injured and no equipment has been damaged. Potential Hazard A hazard is identified. The last one, potential hazard can be challenging as there can be hundreds reported, but we have a system for dealing with them as most of them are to do with perception of hazards dealt with by our facilities management contractor.

Any event which has resulted in an injury to a person is treated as an accident. Any event which had the potential to cause injury but didnt, or resulted in damage to plant or equipment is treated as an incident / near miss. The system works well for us and as ians says it's 'horses for courses'

Choose one term and stick with it. The rest is semantics.

'Incident' covers everything, even near-misses. And the 'unplanned...' quote is the definition. Can't get my head around 'potential hazard'. 'Hazard' is something with potential to harm/damage. Therefore, everything's a hazard and assessing the risk is the key.

Clairel, We could go back and use the common dictionary terms......... but even the Cambridge and Oxford Dictionaries have different definitions of incident.... what chance do we have of agreeing !?! ;)

Claire, This has little to do with credibility, but more to do with the use of words that do not have a consistent use, especially when used in various parts of the world. Even an internationally renowned treatise such as the fourth edition of the International Labour Organization’s Encyclopaedia of Occupational Health and Safety has to clarify the use of such terms-refer to:- http://www.ilo.org/safew...mp;nd=170000102&nh=0 Accident Theory An accident (including those that entail injuries) is a sudden and unwanted event, caused by an outside influence, that causes harm to people and results from the interaction of people and objects. "....often the use of the term accident in the workplace is linked with personal injury. Damage to a machine is often referred to as a disruption or damage, but not an accident. Damage to the environment is often called an incident. Accidents, incidents and disruptions which do not result in injury or damage are known as “near accidents” or “near misses”. So while it may be considered appropriate to refer to accidents as cases of injury to workers and to define the terms incident, disruption and damage separately as they apply to objects and the environment, in the context of this article they will all be referred to as accidents" That is why the a possible way forward is for organisations to define it for themselves and then stick to the definitions. Safety Amateur, We encourage "Potential Hazard reporting" (despite carrying out risk assessments) as that is the bottom of the accident triangle/pyramid and the hazards are dealt with, it will not escalate into near-misses/incidents/accidents. For example, despite regular maintenance, a fire door "sticks" and does not close fully. Our employees report it to our FM contractor-via a phone-no form filling- and it gets "sorted" , but we maintain a count of such reports and also analyse them for trends. This system suits our site. I am not saying it will be suitable for all manner of activities/sites, but the message is that due to varying use of the words and yes, lack of agreement internationally or even nationally , it is up to the users to do it.

Yep seen that, the problem being your definition of an accident does seem a little vague, a dog pooped in our works entrance garden this morning, was it unexpected and undesirable, absolutely, was it an accident, no. did interrupt my normal procedure, yes..........

I am with you Claire, maybe IOSH could champion the cause of creating common definitions of the all-to-unfamiliar language that our profession uses.

A quick Google on IOSH's definition of an accident brought me to a couple of IOSH reports defining accidents as: Accident – any adverse event(s) that results in injury or ill-health.

Our definition of an accident is: An unplanned, undesired (often unexpected) event which interrupts the completion of an activity and may result in injury or damage. The incident is the sequence of events leading up to it.

Oh Ken, sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but I will bite. The definitions are exactly that. Each accident/incident should be defined by the causational nature of them. So by conducting/investigating the root cause you can define if the occurrence was an accident/incident possibly elements of both for complicated cases! Suggest you PM me and I'll forward contact details of expert who can provide you with some information on the subject matter.

I quite like those definitions Phil! Thanks for the imput.

Nice 1 Clairel..... some things never change eh?. This thread could run and run - it has certainly made us smile on a very dull day ;-)

It's giving me somthing to do whilst the sun shines down on me - rofl!

I hope you stood well back when you lit the blue touch paper!!!