Incident Reporting Software

Incident reporting and hazard spotting are cornerstones of health and safety. Incident reports are a record of facts relating to an incident, accident or near-miss that has occurred in the workplace.

While the content of incident reports is quite standard, they can still present challenges for organisations. Issues such as under-reporting, reporting delays and difficulty tracking investigations mean that accurate incident data cannot be collected. More importantly, it can lead to increased risks for employees.

The below is an outline of the 4 main stages to reporting a workplace incident:

1. Response - Employees should inform their manager as soon as an incident occurs. A manager's first responsibility is to see that proper medical treatment is provided. Also, if the hazard still exists, the manager needs to immediately eliminate it.

2. Investigate - Once the response has been completed, a thorough on-site incident investigation should take place by an investigation team. This should take place quickly after the incident so those affected still have the situation fresh in their mind.

3. Analyse - After determining how an incident took place, it’s important to analyse the situation and identify the root cause. This is necessary for developing an effective plan of action for control. It’s important to identify primary, secondary and other contributing causes.

4. Action – Post analysis, it’s important to recommend corrective actions that might include immediate corrective action, as well as long-term corrective actions such as employee training, preventative activities, evaluation of job procedures and hazard analysis.
 

Incident reporting software enables incident & hazard tracking for employers and employees, via the use of technology. This technology allows for systemic tracking, resulting in a succinct and precise of incident reporting. A major benefit of incident reporting software is the ability to report on incidents in real time, which allows you to avoid unnecessary delays and track the process in each step.

An incident reporting management system allows organisations to manage their incident investigations through an online portal. This gives full traceability to the safety team and allows the user to add pictures, documents, actions and notes at any point of the investigation process, recording each action that was taken. Detailed investigation elements support your safety team with root cause analysis

Once an incident has been reported, the next hurdle is tracking any investigations or actions that arise from it. Paper-based reporting systems rely on you inputting any changes or notes manually, with no clear timeline or record of who has done what. Root cause analysis is also made more difficult as you chase up individual reports, hazard records and risk assessments.

A system that promotes traceability will let you keep track of the whole investigation process.

Incidents are also sometimes known as "near misses". Both accidents and incidents are unplanned, and both can result in damage of places or things, however, only accidents can cause injury or illness. To sum up; all accidents are incidents, but not all incidents are accidents.

Incident reporting is a crucial element of health and safety within a workplace. Reporting on incidents as they occur and therefore being able to restore services back as quickly as possible. This enables real time control of any unplanned interruptions going forward.

Getting your employees engaged with the incident reporting process can lead to a positive workplace safety culture. Here's how incident reporting systems can help:

- Users receive automatic acknowledgements when they report an incident, letting them know the information has been logged.
- The Incident Module lets you bring clarity and structure to reporting in your organisation through fully configurable forms
- Capturing hazards quickly and easily on mobile encourages employee participation and positive behaviour.

- Users can report incidents in real time to the relevant people using the Engage mobile app
- With a fully configurable reporting process, users can attach documents such as risk assessments, images, and training records to incident reports
- The time from incident reporting to closing an investigation is shortened, helping to reduce the chances of reoccurrence.