Why the reluctance to report? Is it because the process is clunky and takes for ever to complete? Is it because local managers have been told(incentivised) to keep accident reports low? As you say reporting an incident months after it has happened is fairly pointless, but you really need to find out why it is being delayed. Most people who have been involved in a incident want to get it off the chest as quickly as possible, and not delay. I assume that the IP report it themselves?

Hi Sid

There are two slightly separated issues here.

1. Getting the report quickly.

2 Deciding how long the investigation should take.

The first should be relatively easy. Make sure that there is a very clear policy that is not wholly reliant on the victim who may be likely to have other things than reporting on their mind.

The second is MUCH more difficult. I would be wary of setting over prescriptive timetables for completing investigations of WHATEVER severity.

There are going to be some very serious accidents where the investigation can be effectively completed very quickly.

Equally there could be an incident with a minor outcome but which is a precursor event for something much more serious and if you are going to do an effective root cause analysis it might take much longer than you write into some procedure, particularly if you need to bring in specialists to look at particular parts of the investigation.

If you define that all investigations are to be completed within say 2 weeks or a month, then you may simply block effective root cause investigation, so making it much more likely that the investigators will stop when they have identified some top level cause(s) usually an unsafe act. Meaning that the underlying unsafe conditions are not identified and it is those that you really need to find and sort out!

Thank you all for your replies.

To place a bit of context on the original post - We had an incident whereby a employee was handling mail and issuing to individuals the employee then felt unwell and went home from work potentialy due to the content in the mail  (RA and SSoW in place for handling and issuing mail) No one reported this from the workplace (we actively and continuously promote the requirement to report all AAW) and only when the individual returned some 6 months later did he report it as an AAW (do we then record as NAAW as no evidence or supportive statements can be provided etc) Witness recollection lost, CCTV lost and Evidence lost?  I take on board all you say in your posts but how do you investigate and manage a thourough investigation after 6 months?  This is why I am thinking about a timescale for ivestigation or do we investigate and do the best we can with the information findings we have from the IP and let the legals sort this out - A PI claim will follow this incident? 

Thanks.

IMHO

As Peter states, it will be difficult for the claimant to prove that the was any AAW / exposure & hence that there was an incident that warrants compensation.

If the employee has been away from work for 6 months, how come his line manager or HR have not queries his absence - if they have been in contact with the employee, the employee would have ample opportunity to inform the company & warn them of the incident / possible recurrence. 

It all souds pretty fishy to me...

PS - regarding my previous posting, those deadlines are merely targets and there is flexibility afforded to management / myself to review each incident on a case-by-case basis. The majority of the time we get the initial report and investigation completed well within these periods