Description

How to report incidents in your workplace

Organisations need to have a clear process for incident reporting in order to ensure that any incidents that occur are dealt with in a timely and effective manner. Incident reporting is important for a number of reasons, including:

• It allows organisations to track incidents and identify any patterns that may be emerging.
• It ensures that appropriate action can be taken in response to incidents, such as investigating what went wrong and taking steps to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.
• It can provide valuable information for risk assessments and help to generate awareness of potential risks.
• It can help to improve the safety of an organisation by ensuring that incidents are dealt with promptly and effectively.

If something happens at your workplace and someone gets hurt, your first priority should be to help them and make sure the area is safe. This might involve:

- cleaning up the hazardous area

- providing first aid to the injured person

- calling an ambulance if necessary.

About this course

• Training Provider: OHS.com.au with AlertForce (RTO Code 91826)
• Location: Online
• Course length: Approx. 4 hours
• Time: Self-paced
• Certification / Accreditation: Certificate of Completion*
• CPD Points: Yes. 4 points as certificate of completion

Background – Reporting an incident in a work place

You may not be able to prevent accidents from happening at work but, if they do happen, you must handle them in a manner that satisfies your obligations.

If it is a serious incident, as well as calling the emergency services, you should notify the health and safety authority in your State or Territory immediately, in accordance with the relevant Workplace Health and Safety Legislation.

It is generally required that an incident report form is completed for every workplace accident, no matter how minor, and that a record of every workplace accident is kept (called a ‘Register of Injuries’ in NSW). At a minimum, this information must be readily available at all times, and each report should contain the following:

• Name of injured worker/s
• Worker’s occupation or job title at the time of the injury
• Worker’s age at the time of the injury
• Time and date of injury
• The nature of the industry in which the injury was sustained
• Exact location of the worker at the time of injury
• Exact description of how the injury was sustained (cause)

If you are injured at work, you must complete an incident report. This includes anyone who is a direct worker, agency employee, contractor, customer or visitor. If you are noted on the register of injuries, this also counts as an incident report.

It is important to store personal data carefully, in line with privacy, and health and safety legislation. This is to protect the people involved in the incident, as well as to prevent further accidents from happening.

You must also review the incident to find out whether there are steps you could take to stop it from happening again. A serious injury, or risk to plant and equipment, will need a more in-depth health and safety investigation.

Course outline

Alertforce’s Incident Reporting training course covers the Incident & Hazard module, from navigation, logging and managing incidents and hazards to analysis. A hands-on approach is taken, and the exercises are designed to impart relevant skills and knowledge by having participants work through real-life examples and report templates.

This course is designed for employees who will be reporting incidents or hazards, and supervisors who are tasked with managing the reported incident and hazards. By the end of the course, participants will have a good understanding of how to properly report and manage incidents and hazards. 

Learning form

All Incident Reporting course participants are encouraged to watch the videos and engage in group discussions after each video is finished. Facilitators and participants can review the key points from each video and module using the provided support material.

There are many ways to view and participate in discussions.

• E-learning Format
• Face-to face safety meetings
• Forum
• Email

Participants can upload the training videos to e-learning and view them online. Participants can review the support material online and answer any questions.

Face-to-face safety meetings allow participants to watch videos and participate in discussions. Face-to-face meetings allow for greater interaction and engagement, but can be logistically challenging.

You can also upload the videos to a forum. Participants can access the videos and other support materials via a private forum, company website, or by uploading them to a forum. Each module contains the answers to your questions.

You can also complete the course via email. Participants can email their answers to the discussion questions once they have watched the videos.

No matter how the material is delivered, all participants should have access to it. The support material includes discussion questions as well as the video script. Participants can use the questions to explore the effects of safety practices on their organization.

The modules also include scripts and reference materials. These materials allow participants to review and research the key points of the lesson.

Facilitators and participants can use the video scripts and questions to help them create an action plan. Participants can take specific steps and make suggestions to use the plan in their work environment.