Health and Safety, NEBOSH, OSHA, IOSH, HSE.

What should be looked to ascertain the accident cause? What are the steps involved in accident investigation process? Accident investigation initiated with the information collection, witness interview, facts finding etc. Now the main attempt is to be done to analyze the root cause of the accident. Causes are of two type surface causes and root causes. Surface cause is not so difficult to identify. A Surface cause example is broken machine guard lead to accident, removed machine guard lead to accident. Now main issue is to ascertain Root cause of the accident. One of the techniques to ascertain root cause of any accident is asking why .i.e. 5 Y’s. Asking why question on the situation can help investigator to ascertain the root cause of the accident. Root causes are the cause which are not apparent or are seen immediately but are the key contributor to any accident. Example of root cause can be management failure, human error, Design failure etc. They are of two types Sy...

How one should conduct incident /accident witness interview? What one should emphasize during incident /accident witness interview? Incident /accident witness is key concerned to ascertain the cause of the accident/incident because he was the one who might have seen all the sequence of the incident/ accident. So it is very crucial to conduct incident/ accident witness interview in proper manner.  There are some guidelines to follow which are as mentioned below: 1-       Conduct interview in a closed and silent room where both interviewer and witness can hear each other correctly. 2-       Voice should be as much as low possible, this will keep witness at ease. 3-       Conduct interview of one witness at a time. 4-       Calm down the upset or angry or emotion full witness. This will serve two purposes; witness get ease and also he/she can remember the...

Accident investigation is an essential element of health and safety. It requires to be done in correct manner so as to fulfill the purpose (Root cause elimination, accident prevention etc). Ideally accident investigation to be done by the person who is familiar with the process of the organization. It means if an accident happened in a petroleum storage then most suitable person to do accident investigation is anyone expert from petroleum processing. Also in combination to a process expert, it is desirable that same person should be expert in accident causation, part of accident investigation team previously. However such type of expert is very rare and not easily available. So below are the recommendations for “Who should do the accident investigation” in such cases where above mentioned experts are not available: Joint team formation for accident investigation. This team should includes one person from management who is aware about the accident involved process, pe...

Why should accident be investigated? Is there any guidance document for accident investigation? Accident term is defined as unplanned or undesired event lead to injury. Incident term is defined as unplanned or undesired event may be results into injury, no injury or property loss. Few organisations investigate all incidents (both accident and near miss) either minor or major. Some organisations prefer to investigate reportable incident (Reportable as per local law). However it is better to investigate each and every minor incident because as per domino’s theory these one of the minor incident ultimately results into major one. Reasons for accident investigation 1-       Prime reason for doing accident investigation is to ascertain the root cause, eliminate the root cause or apply hierarchy of controls in the form of corrective and preventive actions to prevent recurrence in future. 2-       Accident investigation poin...

What are the government/ global agencies enforcement initiatives on organisations for reporting an accident/incident? What are RNOAD 1996 and RIDDOR 2013? Duty of Care should be exercise at workplace by both Employee and their Organisation. Employee should obey the norms developed and implemented for health and safety. Similarly organisation should provide explicitness / clear cut health and safety procedures, training on these procedures, review for any gaps in the implementation, review to update the procedure and records keeping. Consultation and communication of procedure before and after development is necessary. Similarly need arise for recording, reporting and investigation of an accident/ incident/ disease happened at workplace while doing business by Organsiation to show duty of care, legally compliant etc. Employee should be aware for; in case any reportable accident/incident/ disease (Dangerous occurrence/ fatal/lost time injury) occurred during business then who wil...

What is the relation between incident reporting and The Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 1981 (No.155)? Which Recommendation supplementing OSH Convention 1981 requirements? What is the role of International labor organisation? Health and safety is a global concern and it requires global support for improvement. So in continuation of same International labor Organsiation (ILO) put pressure globally on its members for improvement of health and safety. So they developed with the help of their tripartite members “The Occupational safety and health convention, 1981 (No.155)” to improve health and safety standards. ILO, being tripartite (Mix of government, Trade union and Organisations) working under United Nation has force to provide the desired improvement in the field of Health and Safety. The main function of ILO is to provide conventions and recommendations related to human rights including health, safety, welfare etc. For the sake of health and safety , I...

What are the types of formula used to compare Health and Safety Performance? Which statistical techniques occupiers can use to analyze accident/incident and ill health?  Is Incident analysis required to compare organisation Health and Safety Performance? You cannot manage, what you cannot measure (.i.e. Peter F Drucker). So measuring health and safety performance is vital for any organisation, country so as to take decisions for further improvements and find the gaps in the existing efforts. Measuring health and safety performance should be quantitative wherever possible. This can be made easy with the help of different formula used by countries like US and UK (HSE and OSHA) to compare health and safety performance. Types of formula used to compare health and safety performance differ from country to country.  However below mentioned formula are common while doing comparison of health and safety performance among country, organisation, states, within ...