Reporting an Incident
Why bother to Report? Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 The University has a duty to report certain accidents, incidents and diseases to the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) under the RIDDOR legislation This includes incidents involving members of staff, students and other users of the University s premises or facilities Accident and incident data enables the University to: Comply with its duty under RIDDOR Benchmark it s safety measures with other Universities Improve information available for the completion of future risk assessments so that high risk areas are identified and control measures can be introduced
What should be Reported? All accidents The University needs to know about all accidents which occur and result in some form of injury, regardless of how serious the injury may be All accidents should be reported to your line manager who will complete the accident/incident form Near misses The University needs to know about all near misses where luck or judgement avoided any injury but which could have caused injury under different circumstances. Sickness Sickness should be reported to your line manager who will subsequently inform Human Resources
How is an accident or incident reported? All accidents and incidents or near misses should be recorded on the University s Incident Report Form which is available on the Staying Safe and Well website. The form can be completed by anyone but ideally either a first aider, first responder (security) or a Line Manager. Once complete a copy of the completed form should be sent to the University Health, Safety & Environment Service (UHSE) and your line manager. It is important that the report is as accurate as possible as it may be used for legal purposes at a later date.
What does RIDDOR include? All work related incidents or accidents which result in: Death Major injury (fracture, dislocation) Injuries which cause a member of staff to have a sickness absence of over seven days not including the day of the incident but taking into account weekends and rest days Work related disease e.g. Asbestosis, Legionnaires Disease, Weils Disease Loss of sight (temporary or permanent) Unconsciousness e.g. caused by asphyxia, exposure to harmful substance, hypothermia Electric shock or burn resulting in unconsciousness Near misses which could have resulted in a dangerous occurrence
What about other users? Incidents involving a non member of staff may also be subject to RIDDOR reporting if they result in: Death Injury where the person is taken direct from the scene to hospital
How do I make a report under RIDDOR? For the majority of incidents, the line manager should inform UHSE who will report the incident on behalf of the University within 15 days Accidents resulting in death or major injury must be reported immediately: UHSE would expect to be called to investigate any major incident and would therefore report the event to the HSE on behalf of the University In the absence of UHSE being physically available on site, Security will contact a member of the service to enable them to report the incident to the HSE remotely In the unlikely event that a member of UHSE cannot be contacted the report should be made by the most relevant senior manager available