Accident Log
The Accident Log records injuries and incidents at your site.
What to Record
Everything. Burns, cuts, slips, trips, scalds, knocks, chemical splashes, and near misses that could easily have injured someone.
The instinct is to record only the serious ones. That instinct is wrong, and for a practical reason: you cannot tell at the time which minor injury will matter later. A small cut that becomes infected, or a slip with no injury that becomes a claim a year on, both look trivial on the day. A contemporaneous record made at the time carries real weight; one written from memory later carries very little.
Near misses are worth recording for a different reason — they show you the accident before it happens. The same wet patch reported three times is a warning you have been given three chances to act on.
What You Record
- Injured person — name or description; they need not be staff
- Injury type and a description of it
- Body part affected — e.g. "left hand, right forearm"
- Where it happened
- Staff member dealing with it
- First aider who attended
Write what happened plainly and factually. "Slipped on wet floor by the dishwash area, no wet floor sign in place" is a useful record. "Was careless" is not — it is a judgement, it is not evidence, and it will not help anyone including you.
Customers and Visitors
Record injuries to customers, delivery drivers and contractors too, not only staff. Anyone injured on your premises belongs in the log.
After an Accident
Recording it is the start.
Ask what allowed it to happen. A burn from a pan handle sticking over the edge of the stove is not carelessness; it is a layout and habit problem that will produce another burn. If the answer changes how you work, put it into the relevant Safe Method or checklist so the fix outlives the person who noticed it.
Serious Injuries
Some incidents must be reported to the authorities under RIDDOR — deaths, specified serious injuries, injuries keeping someone off work more than seven days, and certain dangerous occurrences.
Your Accident Log is not that report and does not replace it. It is the record the report is built from, which is another reason to write it down properly at the time, while the detail is still exact.