Free Safety Information
Near Miss / Hit Reporting - Your Early Warning System
Most organisations I come across are good at recording and investigating their recordable and lost time accidents and a few record their First Aid cases as well. However, not many organisations have an effective system in place for the routine reporting and recording of Near Misses.
What's a Near Miss / Near Hit? Usually a near miss or hit is defined as an accident that almost happened. For example, the situation where someone trips and almost falls down the stairs but manages to grab the hand rail just in time, or when someone is almost hit by a reversing fork lift. In these two examples no injury resulted but this was the result of good luck rather than good management.
Why are Near Misses Important? In the simple examples given above, if an injury had resulted, most organisations would have carried out an investigation into the circumstances and would have taken some form of corrective action. In other words, the decision to investigate and take corrective action is based on whether a person has been injured or not. So therefore, if no injury occurs, no investigation takes place and no attempt is made to prevent the same event occurring at some time in the future.
What we are really saying is that we won't investigate and take corrective action until a serious injury or major damage occurs. Crazy, but then that is how many organisations operate unless they have a near miss reporting system.
When near misses occur they can be regarded as early warnings that something is wrong somewhere in the system. We therefore need to develop a system which allows us to take action before an injury takes place - and of course, this is nothing other than good management practice.
Implementing a Near Miss Reporting System. The first thing to do is to explain to all employees what near misses are and why they are important. Next, explain to them how Hazards & Near Misses will be reported and the forms to be used.
Once the system has been implemented make sure that report forms are readily available in the workplace - have a pad in the lunch room or by the safety notice board. (Keeping the reporting forms in the supervisor's office defeats the object of the exercise.)
When a Hazard and Near Miss report is received by a supervisor, the supervisor should discuss it with the person making the report, decide what corrective action should be taken and implement the change as soon as possible if it is within the supervisor's authority. If not, the matter should be referred to the manager for correction. Near Miss reports and recommended corrective action should not be deferred until the next committee meeting unless it requires further discussion. The idea is to take immediate corrective action now.
Many accidents can be prevented by taking prompt action to prevent a hazardous situation from continuing or developing into something worse. Therefore, use Near Miss reports as your early warning system - waiting for the injury to happen before acting just doesn't make sense!!!
AchieveSafety - www.achievesafety.com
