Lesson 8 – Incident Reporting, Review and Employee Support

Lesson overview

Reporting allows MyEstate to support affected employees, identify patterns and improve future safety controls.

Lesson content

8.1 What should be reported?

Employees should report:

• Accidents and injuries.
• Physical assaults.
• Threats or intimidation.
• Verbal or discriminatory abuse.
• Sexual or other inappropriate behaviour.
• Stalking or persistent unwanted contact.
• Unsafe properties.
• Suspected criminal activity encountered at work.
• Failures of alarms or communication equipment.
• Missed check-ins.
• Near misses.
• Any occasion when an appointment was ended for safety reasons.

Employees who experience work-related violence should report it to their employer because it can affect both physical and mental health.

8.2 Creating a factual record

The report should include:

• Date, time and location.
• People present.
• What the employee directly saw or heard.
• Relevant words used, where remembered.
• Events in chronological order.
• Action taken.
• Injuries or property damage.
• Emergency services or witnesses involved.
• Relevant appointment or communication records.

Staff should distinguish facts from opinions. For example:

• Fact: “The attendee stood in front of the closed front door and shouted.”
• Assumption: “The attendee intended to imprison me.”

8.3 Near misses

A near miss is an event that did not cause injury or damage but had the potential to do so. Reporting near misses may reveal risks before a more serious incident occurs.

Employees will not be criticised merely for ending or rearranging an appointment because they reasonably believed it was unsafe.

8.4 Management response

Management should:

• Confirm the employee’s immediate safety.
• Arrange medical attention where necessary.
• Provide an opportunity to discuss the incident.
• Preserve relevant records.
• Review the risk assessment and existing controls.
• Consider warnings or restrictions on future contact.
• Decide whether two-person attendance or another arrangement is needed.
• Offer appropriate welfare or occupational-health support.
• Determine whether the police, HSE or another authority should be notified.
• Communicate relevant safety information to authorised colleagues.

Certain work-related deaths, injuries, diseases and dangerous occurrences must be reported under RIDDOR. The responsible manager—not individual employees—should determine whether a statutory report is required using current HSE guidance.