What does incident reporting entail

An incident report is a tool that documents any event that may or may not have caused injuries to a person or damage to a company asset. It is used to capture injuries and accidents, near misses, property and equipment damage, health and safety issues, security breaches and misconducts in the worksite.<link>

The purpose of incident reporting is to record an incident, determine its likely cause, document any actions taken, and make it known to stakeholders. One can use an incident report in the investigation and analysis of an event. It includes the root cause and corrective actions to eliminate the risks involved and prevent similar future occurrences. One can also use incident reports as safety documents that show potential risks and uncontrolled hazards found on the work site for future assessments (for example, ergonomic assessments).

Five reasons why it’s important to file an incident report:

1. Prevent more serious incidents.
2. Improve other health and safety measures in the workplace.
3. Save time and resources.
4. Protect the business.
5. Boost overall wellbeing.

An incident report can be used by:

• an authority to create a report of an incident;
• a worker to report an incident he/ she has witnessed;
• any member of the organisation to raise awareness about an incident that has occurred in the worksite.

Four types of incidents you should report:

1. Sentinel events — these are unexpected occurrences that resulted in serious physical or psychological injury or death (for example, slips, trips and falls, natural disasters, vehicle accidents, disease outbreak, etc.).
   • Worker injury incident
   • Environmental incident
   • Property damage incident
   • Vehicle incident
   • Fire incident
2. Near misses — these are situations where the people involved had no injuries but could have potentially been harmed by the risks detected.
3. Adverse events — related to medicine, vaccines, and medical devices. These events occur when an act of commission or omission harmed a patient rather than from the existing disease or condition.
4. No harm events — these are incidents that need to be communicated across an organisation to raise awareness of any harm that may happen.