August 2021 Monthly Blog – Accident Investigation
The purpose of investigations
The most inadequate accident report form I saw (in a surprisingly large company) contained entries for all the usual particulars about name, date, injuries, signatures, description of what took place, etc – but omitted the crucial question:
“What has been done to prevent a recurrence?”.
Surely preventing recurrence is the point of investigating any accident or near miss (let’s call them incidents hereon)?
You have to be a detective
The majority of workers I come across are quite happy to divulge details of an incident they had witnessed, or been involved in.
A minority however might seem more wary, and some of my investigations left me pondering whether or not I was fully getting to the bottom of a story. This might be because an employee was:
- Embarrassed by the incident,
- Fearful of blame/disciplinary action for breaking rules,
- Trying to protect someone else’s reputation.
- Not wanting to prejudice a claim for compensation.
Incident investigations sometimes have to be approached with a little detective work – especially if no witnesses were present, or the injured party has gone offsite e.g. to hospital or home.
Treat the investigation like an interview
A helpful piece of advice given during my training was to treat incident investigations rather like a disciplinary hearing – in other words, let the employee do most of the talking, whilst careful notes are taken.
Invite them to have a colleague present if they are anxious.
Do not prejudge the outcome or look for evidence to support a conclusion you had already formed.
Be fair and impartial – as if it were a friend you were interviewing.
Some tips for the investigation:
- Wherever possible, interview workers at the scene of the incident, making it easy for them to show you events as they saw them.
- Explain that the purpose is to learn from the incident and to prevent a recurrence – not to apportion blame.
- Avoid the use of closed questions that can be answered with a simple “Yes” or “No”, and instead ask open questions such as: “Tell me about…?”, or “What happened next?”.
- People can still be a witness without necessarily having seen the particular incident taking place. Often, staff can provide valuable information about actual – as opposed to sanctioned - working practices.
Your report
The outcome should normally be a report written for the senior managers who are named on the front cover.
It should be laid out like any management report, with an Executive Summary, Introduction, Findings, Conclusion, Recommendations, Photos, Drawings, Appendices, References, etc.
Always write reports as if aimed at someone who has never visited that workplace; so begin by setting the scene with the layout of the workroom and a description of the work carried out there.
Bearing in mind that the report may be used as evidence in any legal action, never present second-hand information as your own if you didn’t personally witness it yourself. For example, instead of saying: “The injured party fell down the stairs”, state: “The injured party told me they had fallen down the stairs”.
One closing thought
I’ve often wondered why staff should be fearful about the purpose of an incident investigation if you had already explained this point adequately in their training, then reinforced it periodically in their refresher training? Just a thought…
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