The Secret to Professional H&S Investigations

In any organisation things don’t always go to plan.

You need to be prepared for the unexpected in order to respond effectively.

This SlideShare covers:

• The importance of investigation

• Essential control measures required

• Your incident reporting responsibilities

• Key actions as leaders and managers

• Accident & incident investigation best practice

With the right measures, policies and procedures in

place, workers and managers will be more competent in

dealing with accidents and emergencies.

Effective plans need to be in place and regularly tested.

The Importance of Investigation

Health and safety investigations should form an essential part of

your monitoring process.

Incidents, including near misses, can tell you a lot about the reality

of H&S in your organisation.

Investigating your accidents and occupational ill health will help

you identify root cause and inform your continuous improvement

programme.

What should you investigate?

• In short: All accidents whether major or minor.

• Serious accidents have the same root causes as minor accidents, as do incidents with a potential for serious loss. It is these root causes that bring about the accident, the severity is often a matter of chance.

• Accident studies have shown that there is a consistently greater number of less serious accidents than serious accidents.

• Many accident ratio studies have been undertaken

and the one shown below is

based on studies carried out by the

Health & Safety Executive.

Accident Studies

• In all cases, ‘non injury’ incidents had the potential to develop into something more serious.

• These ratios clearly show focus should be placed on all accidents, particularly unsafe practices at the bottom of the pyramid. Such action will lead to improved results in the upper tiers.

Investigating an incident thoroughly reassures your workers that you take their safety seriously.

Make sure you take proactive, as well as reactive, steps to prevent further occurrences.

Your investigations will also provide essential information for your insurers should and incident progress to a claim.

Control Measures

Typical control measures include:

• Equipment used

• Working practices (e.g. ways of working, supervision and

training)

• Worker behaviour

Investigations can help identify why existing risk control

measures failed and what improvements or measures are

needed.

• In workplaces where a trade union is recognised, appointed H&S representatives have the right to:

• Investigate potential hazards and dangerous occurrences in the workplace.

• Examine causes of workplace accidents

Your ResponsibilitiesReporting Incidents

All employers, self-employed and people in control of work

premises have health and safety duties under RIDDOR.

Each employee has a responsibility to comply with

H&S Regulations, look out for their own H&S and also others

around them.

You must report certain work-related injuries, cases of ill health and

dangerous occurrences.

RIDDOR applies to all work activities but not all incidents are reportable.

Reporting incidents should not stop employers undertaking their own investigation to ensure risks are controlled effectively.

As a business leader or manager, it is important that you take into account the arrangements required for you and your team to effectively investigate accidents and incidents. This section covers the major actions leaders and managers should follow.

ACTIONS

Key ActionsFor Leaders

1) Verify that plans are in place to deal with immediate risks following unforeseen events

2) Make sure that there is a reporting process so that leaders

are informed of accidents, incidents, or cases of

occupational health

3) Consider lessons learned from accidents and incidents of others in similar industries. Could they have been avoided?

4) Ensure people are held to account if failings reoccur

Key Actions For Managers

Formulate Plans• Detail what workers must

report and how it will be communicated to workers

• How will work-related ill health, accidents or near misses be notified?

• Who will assist in the investigation?

• What action could be taken as a result?

• How will you identify trends?

Examine what reporting procedures are suitable, check all incident, accident and near-miss reports

and identify trends.

Be fair in any investigation, according to the level of risk identified.

Collect evidence, establish what happened, when, where and why.

What are the Immediate and Underlying Causes?

• Immediate causes Premises, plant and substances, procedures, or people.

• Underlying causes Management arrangements and organisational factors such as design, selection of materials, maintenance, management of change, adequacy of risk controls, communication, competence etc.

Identify Root Cause

Investigate accidents with a high priority - before people’s memories fade and while evidence is still available.

Record, keep & organise findings.

Engage specialist help to support complex investigations, e.g. an operation involving major accident hazards.

Worker Consultation and Involvement.

• Involve workers in the planning process and the target-setting process.• Carry out joint investigation with workers and monitor their performance.

• Consider how to achieve, test and maintain competency.

• Do investigators have the necessary training, knowledge and experience to carry out their duties?

• Consider whether training issues contributed to causes of accidents/incidents/near misses.

• Seek specialist advice if needed.

Competence.

A Simple StructureFor effective Investigations

(HSE advised).

According to the HSE:“The Plan, Do, Check, Act approach achieves a balance between the systems and behavioural aspects of management.

It also treats health and safety management as an integral part of good management generally, rather than as a stand-alone system.”

• To implement your Health and Safety policy, you need to establish and maintain an effective H&S management system that is proportional to the risks.

• You should set the direction for effective H&S management and a policy that sets a clear direction to help ensure communication of H&S duties and benefits.

Plan

• Delivery depends on an effective management system to ensure the health and safety of employees and other people affected by your work.

Do

• Organisations should aim to protect people by introducing management systems & practices that ensure risks are dealt with sensibly, responsibly and fairly.

• Profile your businesses risks, organise H&S and implement your plan.

• Monitoring and reporting are important parts of H&S arrangements. Management systems allow organisations to receive both specific and routine reports on policy performance.

Check

• When measuring performance make sure that your plans have been implemented. Assess how well the risks are being controlled and if you are achieving your aims.

• Investigate the causes of accidents, incidents or near misses.

• It is important to review performance to establish whether your essential H&S principles have been implemented across the organisation.

Act

• This tells you whether your system is effective in managing risk and protecting people.

How technology can help

• Managing your health and safety system manually can be time consuming and prone to human error.

• Implementing EvoSafe, our leading health and safety software, can speed things up by automating manual tasks and improving compliance.

EvoSafe, is cloud based and

available offline, so wherever you are you are able to manage your

health and safety with ease.

Want to know more?

If you’d like to know more about how EvoSafe can help you, get in contact and we’ll be happy to talk you through it.

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