How to Write an Incident Report: A Step-by-Step Guide

In an ideal world, every working environment would be perfectly safe and there would never be any workplace incidents. But no matter how effective your risk management system may be, accidents can still occur. 

If a work injury or near miss does happen, you’ll need to investigate the incident and document it in a thorough accident report.

This post covers everything you need to know about incident reports, including when they’re required and what you should include.

What Is an Incident Report?

An incident report is a form that documents any unexpected adverse workplace event, such as incidents involving:

• Worker injuries or illness
• Company property damage
• Employee misconduct
• Customer injuries or damages
• Security breaches

Writing an incident report ensures that relevant details are preserved for both internal and external investigators.

The Importance of Incident Reporting

A workplace incident report is meant to record an incident, determine a possible root cause for it, document corrective actions implemented (or to be implemented) to prevent future incidents, and communicate all this information concisely to stakeholders. An incident report can also be used as a safety document to identify risks and uncontrolled hazards in the workplace.

Here’s why incident reporting is important:

• Documenting and reporting the details of an incident creates accountability and ensures that corrective actions occur promptly, which can help prevent future incidents.
• Effective communication of hazards and threats (equipment failure, employee misconduct, absence of PPEs, etc.) in the workplace raises workplace safety awareness among both workers and management and helps mitigate hazards.
• Incident reports can demonstrate compliance in the event of an audit or OSHA inspection.
• A database of incident reports helps you identify gaps in your safety protocols.
• An incident report is helpful in workers’ compensation cases.

When to Write an Incident Report

Ideally, an incident report should be completed as soon as an incident occurs, with minor injuries and near misses given as much importance as major workplace injuries or adverse events. Acting quickly ensures that the people involved as well as witnesses can remember details clearly enough to fill out the incident report form accurately.

Depending on the severity of the incident, you may be legally required to report an incident to OSHA or your local law enforcement within a given timeframe. And while not all incidents require external reporting, you still have to document them internally.

There are four main types of incidents that must be recorded internally:

1. Sentinel events or unexpected events that result in serious injury or death (falls, chemical exposure, etc.) Injuries that result in amputation, the loss of an eye, or death must also be reported to OSHA.
2. Near misses or non-emergencies where the event had the potential to cause harm or injury but did not do so.
3. Adverse events that occur in healthcare settings when a medicine, vaccine, or medical device causes an adverse reaction and thus harm to the people involved.
4. No harm events, which are potential incidents that might occur due to certain hazards and risks in the workplace. These need to be communicated across the organization to raise awareness about the hazard.

How to Write Incident Reports: The 4 Foundations

An effective incident report should be detailed, accurate, and convey all information in straightforward language. Here are the foundations of a good incident report:

1. Accurate Reporting

A misspelled name or transposed numbers can change the entire meaning of an incident report. Always review the final incident report for accuracy, and double-check the spelling of all names. Have another person review it to catch anything you might have missed.

2. Objectivity

A good incident report provides an objective description of the incident and is supported by facts rather than emotions or opinions. Avoid assigning blame and biased statements, and make sure to include all sides of the story. Where possible, include quantifiable measurements.

3. Completeness

An incident report should cover all angles about an incident, as well as the causes and corrective actions to be implemented. Cover all the essentials (who was involved, what happened, and when, where, why, and how it happened). Capture information from anyone who was involved as well as witnesses and the incident investigation team, and include their full names.

4. Visual Details

To make the report clearer and easier to understand, include photos of the injury, damage, and environment from multiple angles. Include any relevant diagrams, illustrations, and graphs to supplement the facts.

10 Things to Include in an Incident Report

According to professional incident report writing guidelines, your report must state all the essential information about the incident, including descriptions, witness statements and victim statements, and more. Here’s some information that every incident report must contain.

1. Basic Details

The date, time, and location of the incident is fundamental to any incident report. Be as specific as possible with this information. For example, if the location of the accident was “outside the building,” include details like, “by the northwest entry door” or “30 feet west of the main parking lot entrance.”

2. Environmental Factors

Record any physical and environmental conditions that may have contributed to the incident, including potential hazards found in the area. Examples include inadequate lighting, a leaking ceiling, or malfunctioning equipment.

3. Context

Provide context about the work environment or the events leading up to the incident. Ask the people involved in the incident how they were feeling at the time (tired, stressed, rushed, etc). State of mind can be a contributing factor in workplace incidents and may signal the need for a deeper look at workplace wellness.

4. Victim Information

Include the details of everyone involved in and/or affected by the incident: names, job titles, department, and the supervisors/managers of the people involved in the incident.

5. Injuries

The incident report should contain detailed descriptions of all injuries that occurred, including the body part(s) injured, the nature and extent of the injury, and the severity of the injury.

6. Treatment

Make note of any initial or first aid treatment (including bandaging, medications, etc.) and what happened next, like emergency transportation to a hospital.

7. Damage to Property and Equipment

Record all assets, materials, facilities, and equipment that were damaged in the incident. In addition to providing context about the incident, this information can be useful when weighing corrective action and identifying what needs to be repaired or replaced.

8. Witness Information

Get detailed accounts of the incident from any witnesses to understand their perspective. Since these are subjective accounts, it is important to ensure accuracy by confirming details with the witnesses. It also helps to review the report with them once it’s complete to confirm that they agree with what you have written.

9. Actions of People Involved

Use statements from victims and witnesses to create a picture of what people were doing when the incident occurred. This description must be detailed and include quantitative measurements if possible. For example, if an employee was injured by an object falling on them, include answers to questions like:

• What was the employee doing (lifting the object or walking past as it fell)?
• If the employee was lifting the object, was there any precaution they could have taken to ensure it didn’t fall?
• What kind of object was it and what was its weight?
• What body part did the object fall on?

10. Descriptive Account With Supporting Evidence

Based on all the information collected and analyzed, create a story describing what happened and how and why it occurred. To back up the story, include photographic or video documentation of both the event and its aftermath.

While the above list is by no means exhaustive, it contains most of the general information that every incident report must contain.

Use an Online Platform to Make Incident Reporting Easier

Filling out an accident report by hand increases the risk of errors. Plus, paper incident reports can be lost or damaged, and they’re not accessible remotely.

Using a platform such as Pulpstream’s Incident Management Solution can make the process easier. With Pulpstream, you can:

• Collect and store data related to the incident in one place.
• Create a convenient online incident report form that employees can access via an intuitive dashboard.
• Improve the employee experience in disciplinary cases by allowing them to check on the status of their case.
• Analyze your data easily using sophisticated analytics tools.
• Store incident report templates and samples so that employees have a better idea of how these should look.
• Disseminate the incident report to all stakeholders and store it in a common location, accessible by all authorized employees.
• Automate scheduled follow-ups on the investigation or the corrective action implementation, if necessary.

You can access all these capabilities and more with Pulpstream. Book a free demo today!