Hi Jonathan

If you put 100 health and safety professionals in a room and asked them to define these terms you would probably get 50 answers + those like me who say that it is imporssible to come up with a foolproof definition.

We had our annual rail industry audit which I left to our rail division to deal with.

However the lead auditor came to see me and told me that there were a few things that me and my team would need to address.

To which my answer was that H&S was managed as an integral part of the line management function, such that if there were issues specific to our rail division, it was up to the Head of that division to sort out, but that they could seek my advice as appropriate.

So, the auditor said "I get that" but then went through a couple of points and I repeated my philophical position but they kept on continuing!

However, then they explained that they were issuing a Non Conformance Report as we (and/or our rail division) didn't have a system to ensure the reporting and investigation of all incidents and near misses.

At this point I decided to take over this particular problem from our Head of Rail.

Told the auditor that we couldn't accept the NCR as it was impossible to adequately close it out. 

So, the auditor asked why and I gave him my standard explanation.

Suppose a brick falls off a scaffold and strikes the helmet of  the worker standing below - incident or near miss - YES or NO?

So, they said INCIDENT.

Same brick falls off the scaffold and narrowly misses the worker - incident or near miss - YES or NO?

Auditor said NEAR MISS

Same brick falls off the scaffold but is caught by the fan strutting out from the scaffold and there precisely for such an eventuality - incident or near miss - YES or NO?

Auditor said NO - "the risk has been addressed and the fan has worked, so neither an incident nor a near miss". 

But said I "boards get removed from scaffolds for all sorts of reasons, sometimes entirely legitimately, and sometimes don't get put back when they should - so there might have been a hole in the fan which the brick could have fallen through", so as far as I am concderned you could define this as an incident OR near miss" as it is to some extent down to fortune that there wasn't a gap in the fan.

However, of course, if the auditor had told me that the brick being caught on the fan constituted an incident OR near miss, I would have argued to the contrary, as I COULD have at most stages during the variations in the narrative. 

So, pick whatever definitions you (and your organisation) wish, if you need to count numbers, but far more important is to see scenarios as opportunities to review whether there is room for improvement. It doesn't matter one iota whether you define it as an INCIDENT, NEAR MISS or neither, except for your statistics or where legislation (or other external influence) sets parameters for reporting or recording.

Edited by user 05 March 2023 11:06:28(UTC)  | Reason: Spotted typo

I'm also in the 'don't care what you call it' category, on the grounds that the label you apply doesn't matter, what matters is what you do about it.

Since Peter Gotch brought up rail industry, I'll also highlight that Network Rail distinguishes between 'near miss' and 'close call'. 

We also have clients who insist on calling things 'near hits' (their argument is something like 'near' implies 'nearly', which implies something that almost but didn't actually, so they claim 'near miss' means it didn't actually miss, which would make it actually a hit, which they say is liable to cause confusion, at which point I find myself rolling my eyes).

FWIW, in our internal reporting we have 'accident' for something that causes any injury to an individual, 'significant incidents' and 'other minor incidents', but the latter two categories are not defined with any legalese and it's up to the investigating individual whether they categorise it as something significant or something minor. If significant it is discussed in the safety committee meeting and reported to the board, if minor it may be (again at discretion of the investigating individual).  All go into teh annual review for trends becasue multiple 'minor' incidents might aggregate to something they didn't individually.