Near miss reporting: what counts, with examples

What is a near miss?

HSE's guide to investigating accidents and incidents, HSG245, defines a near miss as "an event that, while not causing harm, has the potential to cause injury or ill health".

Two things make something a near miss. Something happened: an object fell, a vehicle moved, a machine started. And nobody was hurt, usually through luck or a quick reaction and not because a control worked. The same event on a different day, with someone standing a metre to the left, is an accident.

HSG245 says it is often pure luck that decides whether a dangerous situation becomes a near miss or an accident, and that the value of investigating each is the same.

Near miss, undesired circumstance or dangerous occurrence

Three terms get used as if they meant the same thing. They do not, and one of them carries a legal duty.

The first two definitions are HSE's, from HSG245. The third is a legal category. A dangerous occurrence must be notified without delay and reported within 10 days, and the list includes the overturning of lifting equipment, plant touching overhead power lines, and any fire or explosion that stops work for more than 24 hours. Our guide to RIDDOR reporting has the list.

Most people call an undesired circumstance a hazard or an unsafe condition. Whatever you call it, it belongs in the same reporting system: a blocked fire exit found on Monday is better news than a near miss on Tuesday.

Near miss examples

Construction and trades

• A hammer is dropped from a tower scaffold and lands beside someone working below.
• A ladder slides sideways as a roofer starts to climb, and he steps off at the second rung.
• An excavator bucket uncovers an unmarked electricity cable without cutting it.
• A foot goes through a fragile rooflight and the worker catches himself on the purlin.
• A sheet of plasterboard propped against a wall falls across a walkway seconds after someone has passed.

Warehousing and transport

• A forklift and a picker meet at a blind corner and both stop in time.
• A box falls from an overhanging pallet on the top beam into an empty aisle.
• A lorry pulls away from the loading bay as the forklift driver is about to drive into the trailer.
• A reversing van stops short of a colleague walking behind it.

Manufacturing and workshops

• A machine starts up while a fitter is clearing a jam, because it was stopped but not isolated. His hands were clear.
• A grinding disc shatters and the pieces hit the guard and the wall.
• A load slips in its sling during a lift and drops a few inches back on to the bench.
• A drum of solvent is knocked over by a pallet truck and the spill is contained before it reaches the drain.

Offices, shops and other premises

• Someone catches a foot in a trailing cable and stumbles without falling.
• A shelf bracket gives way and a row of box files lands on an empty desk.
• A customer slips on a wet floor by the entrance and grabs the door frame.
• A plug overheats and scorches the socket, and is switched off before anything catches fire.

Care and cleaning

• One loop of a hoist sling comes off its hook as a resident is being raised from the bed, and the carer lowers them safely.
• A used needle is found loose in a laundry bag and nobody is pricked.
• Two cleaning products are mixed in a bucket and give off fumes. The cleaner leaves the room and is not affected.
• A wheelchair brake fails on a ramp and a carer catches the chair.

Most of these would not be reportable under RIDDOR. A few could be: an escape of fumes or a chemical spill is a dangerous occurrence if it could have injured someone, which is why every report should be checked against the list. And every one of them is a fracture, an amputation or worse on a less lucky day.

Is near miss reporting a legal requirement?

There is no general legal duty to record ordinary near misses. Three duties sit close to it.

• Dangerous occurrences must be reported and recorded. That is a duty under RIDDOR, and the record must be kept for at least three years.
• You must monitor and review your safety arrangements. Regulation 5 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires every employer to have arrangements for the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of their preventive and protective measures. HSE's guidance is that investigating accidents and near misses is part of that monitoring, and that a near miss is a reason to look again at the risk assessment.
• Employees must tell you. Under regulation 14 of the same regulations, every employee must inform their employer of any work situation they would reasonably consider a serious and immediate danger, and of any shortcoming in the employer's health and safety arrangements. A reporting system gives them the means to do it.

So the law does not say "keep a near miss book". It does expect you to find out when your controls are not working, and near misses are how you find out without anyone being hurt.

Why record near misses

• They show where the controls are weak. A risk assessment says what should happen. A near miss tells you what does happen.
• They are easier to investigate than accidents. HSG245 makes the point that nobody is injured, there is no claim or prosecution hanging over the conversation, and witnesses are more likely to say plainly what went wrong.
• They show patterns. One stumble on the yard steps is bad luck. Four in a winter is a lighting problem.
• They are evidence that you look. A record of near misses, each with an action against it, shows an inspector or an insurer a firm that checks its own arrangements.

How to get people to report near misses

Near misses often go unreported. People think nothing happened, or that reporting it will get somebody into trouble, or that nothing will be done. Each of those can be dealt with.

1. Make it take two minutes. Where, when, what happened. If the form is two pages, people will not bother for something that did not hurt anyone. Let people report by telling a supervisor who writes it down.
2. Take blame out of it. Say in plain words that a near miss report will not be used to discipline the person who makes it, and keep to that. One report used against someone ends the reporting.
3. Do something, and be seen to. Fix what was reported and tell the person who reported it. A report that disappears teaches people not to bother.
4. Talk about them. Use last month's near misses as the subject of a toolbox talk. It shows the reports are read.
5. Treat a rising number as good news. More reports usually means more is being noticed, not that the place has become more dangerous. A site with no near miss reports has a reporting problem.
6. Report your own. When the owner writes up the time they nearly reversed into the gatepost, everyone else has permission.

What to do with each near miss report

1. Make it safe. Deal with the immediate danger before anything else.
2. Write it down the same day. Where, when, what happened, who was there. The accident report form works for near misses with the injury section left blank.
3. Check it against the RIDDOR list. If it is a dangerous occurrence, it has to be reported.
4. Ask what the worst realistic outcome was. HSG245 says the depth of an investigation should depend on the potential consequences and how likely the event is to happen again, not on the harm done this time. A dropped hammer that could have killed someone deserves more attention than a paper cut that did draw blood.
5. Find the cause. Why did the box overhang? Why was the machine not isolated? Keep asking until you reach something you can change.
6. Set an action with a name and a date.
7. Look at the risk assessment for that job and update it if the near miss shows a gap.
8. Tell people what was done.

Once a month, read back over the reports together. The pattern across ten reports tells you more than any one of them.

Recording near misses in SafetyPro360

In SafetyPro360 a near miss is one of the incident types, alongside accident, dangerous occurrence and property damage. A report holds the date, time, site and exactly where it happened, what happened, what was done straight away, witnesses and the root cause, with a severity and a status from reported through to closed. It can be entered on a phone. What needs doing can be set up as an action with a person and a due date, and overdue actions are flagged. Reports are entered by people with a login, and the product does not send anything to HSE.

Questions people ask