Did you know that you’re supposed to be logging near misses in the workplace? While lots of employers think they only need to report accidents, it’s just as important to report near misses too. The Health and Safety Executive defines a near miss as “an event not causing harm but has the potential to cause injury or dangerous occurrences”. If your business has been slacking on your near-miss and accident reports, it’s time to start thinking about ways to improve your reporting protocol. If you’re wondering why it is important to report accidents and near misses, keep reading on to find out more.
Near misses
Near misses happen every day. They can take place inside, outside, or even on the road. No matter what industry your company is a part of if an event happened that had the potential to cause injury or ill health, it’s classified as a near miss.
Since near misses happen so often, you may be tempted to brush the event to the side and hope it never happens again. After all, slip-ups are part of life! Wrong. If near-misses continue happening, the odds are an accident is likely to happen soon. Taking a small amount of time to report near misses far outweighs the catastrophic effects of an accident.
Accidents cost businesses a significant amount of money and could result in one of your employees being hurt due to your own negligence. When you track the near misses that occur in the workplace, you’re able to spot patterns and fixes that need to be made in order to avoid an accident. Not reporting near misses can result in devastating accidents.
Why is it important to report a near miss?
Why is it important to report a near miss? After all, nothing happened, so no harm was done in not noting it down, right?
You may be thinking that you’re able to act after spotting a near miss without keeping a record. Perhaps this is how you’ve gone about business in the past – by addressing the near-miss then and there and not keeping a paper trail of events that occurred. While this can seem like the easy route at the time, keeping a detailed record of near-misses is highly recommended.
Reporting near misses lets you engage multiple teams to solve problems and increases safety ownership and tells your employees that you value their contribution to the workplace. When you don’t follow appropriate health and safety protocol, your workers’ can be made to feel that they aren’t valued.
Being diligent with your near-miss reporting creates a culture of safety and accountability – something so important for every business out there.
Accident incident reporting software
Now that you know why it’s so important to log accidents and near misses, you may be wondering how to keep a record of past events. A great way to improve the health and safety processes at your work is through accident incident reporting software.
Accident incident reporting software allows employees to fill out incident reporting forms online, so everything is documented for management to review. This helps companies identify the root causes of accidents and near misses and implement plans to have a safer workplace for their employees.
Accidents can happen in any industry. That’s why Alphatec caters to a variety of sectors including automotive, blue light, care homes, construction, education, government, hospitals, legal and more. Instead of brushing near misses under the carpet and ending up with a terrible accident, do your best to log each and every near miss and accident to create a stronger and more reputable company.
Using health and safety risk assessment software is a great way to protect your company and your employees. It provides a detailed analysis of all reports so you can thoroughly understand if any risks are present. There’s no better way to create a safe environment than through data.
If this is something that your business would benefit from then get in touch with us today.