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.
An incident report is a form that documents any unexpected adverse workplace event, such as incidents involving:
Writing an incident report ensures that relevant details are preserved for both internal and external investigators.
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:
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:
An effective incident report should be detailed, accurate, and convey all information in straightforward language. Here are the foundations of a good incident report:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
Make note of any initial or first aid treatment (including bandaging, medications, etc.) and what happened next, like emergency transportation to a hospital.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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:
You can access all these capabilities and more with Pulpstream. Book a free demo today!