In a new report, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (Rospa) has accused firms of failing to adopt a professional approach to the investigation of accidents and incidents.
The report's findings will support the society's demands for a more explicit legal requirement for employers to investigate accidents.
Unless organisations approach health and safety management systematically, their approach to investigation is likely to be cursory and superficial, it says.
Such an approach consequently leads to narrow, technically-focused 'quick fixes' rather than uncovering underlying causes that could enable them to make 'root and branch' changes in management systems.
The report highlights the tendency for organisations to seek to apportion blame in the wake of an accident, frequently to blame the victim, rather than to search for causes. Yet arguably, the most important thing to establish about accidents is not just how they happened but why they were not prevented, says the report.
Rospa recommends a series of essential steps for a thorough investigation. These include:
- taking prompt emergency action
- securing the scene to prevent disturbance of evidence
- deciding on the level of investigation required
- gathering, analysing and integrating the evidence
- identifying gaps in the evidence
- generating conclusions and recommendations
- communicating recommendations.
Source
The Facilities Business
