Worksafe at Schools - Injury and Incident Reporting

Action Guide 7: Injury and Incident Reporting

Introduction

An injury can be defined as a situation where harm has occurred. An incident can be defined as a situation where harm might have occurred (a near miss). The school is required to have a system to record, report, notify and investigate when an injury/incident occurs. This system enables schools to identify injury/incident trends and develop injury prevention strategies.

Schools also need to:

• Ensure that each staff member has responsibility for injuries and incident reporting
• Ensure that there is appropriate training for staff on the legal responsibilities concerning injury/incident reporting and training for appropriate staff on injury/incident investigation/reporting

Initial Response

Ensure that any injured person receives appropriate treatment.

In the case of a serious harm injury, the school is required to ensure that as little change as possible is made to the scene of the injury, except where it is necessary:

• Save someone's life, prevent further harm or to relieve someone's suffering
• Maintain access for general public to essential service or utility
• Prevent serious damage to or loss of property

This is called `non-interference with an injury scene' and it will aid OSH investigators with reconstructing what occurred before and after an injury/incident.

Reporting To OSH

Where serious harm occurs to an employee, student, volunteer helper or visitor, schools are required to notify OSH as soon as possible, and to submit a written report to OSH within seven days of the injury.

Reporting Within The School

Schools also need to report injuries or incidents to the Principal, Health and Safety Coordinator or the Board of Trustees, as well as parents, guardians, whanau and students.

Injury/Incident Register

Injuries/incidents must be recorded in an injury/incidents register. Schools may decide to record student and staff injuries/incidents in the same register.

The register must provide the following:

• Information to help prevent occurrences
• Information to help fulfil the school's reporting requirements, and
• Information for ACC claims

Information to be recorded on the register must include:

• Date and time of injury/incident
• Name of individual
• Type of injury
• Part of body affected
• Treatment provided

The Health and Safety Coordinator is responsible for ensuring the injury register is completed for each injury/incident.

Injury/Incident Investigation

The purpose of investigating injuries/incidents is to identify the causes and prevent recurrence. Investigation of an injury/incident is the responsibility of the school Health and Safety Coordinator.

For the majority of injuries/incidents the causes are straightforward and the school can do the investigation.

In the case of serious harm injuries, OSH will likely be involved in the investigation. In other cases, the school may wish to enlist expert assistance, or use a school staff member who has received specialist training. It would be helpful to identify people with investigation skills who are available to assist if an injury/incident should occur.

There are incidents that occur in a school where an injury or serious harm does not occur ("near miss") but there is a potential to cause harm. These incidents require an investigation in order to understand what took place and to ensure that it does not recur and cause more harm in the future.

Corrective Actions

The Health and Safety Coordinator is responsible for ensuring corrective actions are identified and implemented. This includes feeding results of OSH investigations back into the hazard management process.

If an investigation into an injury/incident identifies a significant hazard, this will need to be recorded in the school's Hazard Register. Following an investigation, provision should be made for providing information to staff, students and others on any changes to school health and safety management procedures.