Every year people are killed or injured at work. Over 40 million working days are lost annually through work-related accidents and illnesses. This workbook gives organisations an opportunity to find out what went wrong. Learning the lessons and acting upon these, may reduce, or even prevent, accidents in the future. As a step-by-step guide, it will help all organisations, particularly smaller businesses, to carry out their own health and safety investigations. Investigating accidents and incidents explains why you need to carry out investigations and takes you through each step of the process:

According to the Department for Work & Pensions over 40 million working days are lost through work-related injuries and ill health, at a cost to business of £2.5 billion. “If you think safety is expensive, try an accident” Chairman of Easy Group. Clearly, there are good financial reasons for reducing accidents and ill health. Costings show that for every £1 a business spends on insurance; it can be losing between £8 and £36 in uninsured costs. The same accidents happen again and again, causing suffering and distress to an ever-widening circle of workers and their families. The investigation and analysis of work-related accidents and incidents forms an essential part of managing health and safety. However, learning the lessons from what you uncover is at the heart of preventing accidents and incidents. Identify what is wrong and take positive steps to put it right. This guide will show you how. Carrying out your own health and safety investigations will provide you with a deeper understanding of the risks associated with your work activities. Blaming individuals is ultimately fruitless and sustains the myth that accidents and cases of ill health are unavoidable when the opposite is true. Well thought-out risk control measures, combined with adequate supervision, monitoring and effective management (i.e. your risk management system) will ensure that your work activities are safe. Health and safety investigations are an important tool in developing and refining your risk management system .