Accidents and near-misses

​It is important to be prepared for accidents and near misses in your organisation and to make sure your employees know what to do if one unfortunately does take place.

There are three key stages that you need to be aware of and plan for.

We would recommend that you record all accidents and near misses and if you employ more than 10 employees, the law requires you to maintain an accident book.

Recording accidents and incidents helps you to spot trends. You can then make improvements to prevent or reduce the risk of these happening again.

You legally must record an accident when it:

• results in an employee not being able to work for 3 days or more
• is a reportable incident, injury, disease or dangerous occurrence (RIDDOR)

Tools for recording

The system you use to record with must ​be data protection compliant. It must not allow staff to see each other's personal details.

You can find out more about reportable incidents and buy an accident book from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) which meets these requirements.