About
The Accident Book
The accident book allows full details of all accidents to be recorded, along with details of those affected by the accidents. However, the personal information about individuals can be easily detached for storage in an alternative secure location.
The accident book is now covered by the General Data Protection Act and as such the process for reporting accidents has changed. This is a legal requirement.
The new books have detachable pages and after entering a full accident record, the user is able to add a code or name etc to the stub which is relevant to the page being removed e.g. S Jones 01022011. When the page is removed it is then stored on the injured person’s personnel file. The stub remains in the book for reference and continuity.
The accident book is then ready to receive the next set of accident details and all personal details form the previous accident are no longer able to be viewed. This was not the case with Accident books prior to 1998, all accident details remained in the accident book, this included personal details, addresses, contact details etc.
An added benefit of the new book, as produced and sold by the Health and Safety Executive, is that it contains information on how to prevent accidents from occurring and how to administer first aid if they do occur in spite of everyone’s best endeavours.
Since they contain such useful information, the books represent a ready reference source to complement other educational and informational arrangements.
If the Employer should choose to use online accident reporting then they must ensure that the software is able to satisfy the requirements of the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1979 and can be accessible to Employees or their representatives and in a format that is approved by the Secretary of State.
Associated Legislation
The Health and Safety (First-aid) Regulations 1981 apply to all workplaces in Great Britain, including those with less than five employees, and to the self employed.
Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1979 -
Accident Reporting
If you are an employer, self-employed or in control of premises, you have a duty to report some accidents and incidents at work under RIDDOR (the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013).
As an employer, you must report any work related deaths, injuries, cases of disease, or near misses involving your employees wherever they are working by going to the website shown below as soon as possible.
Online forms are in place and you can select one of 7 templates to provide the information.
You will need to call the Incident centre in the event of a major injury or a fatality.
Incident Contact Centre on 0845 300 99 23.
You must report:
Deaths;
Specified injuries;
Over-7-day injuries – where an employee or self-employed person is away from work or unable to perform their normal work duties for more than 7 consecutive days;Â
Injuries to members of the public or people not at work, where they are taken from the scene of an accident to hospital;
Some work-related diseases;
Some dangerous occurrences – a near miss, where something happens that does not result in an injury, but could have done;
Gas Safe-registered gas fitters must also report dangerous gas fittings they find, and gas conveyors/suppliers must report some flammable gas incidents.
It is advisable to report any incident as soon as possible.  However ,Incident other than the Over 7 Day Category must be reported within 10 Days. The over 7 Day are the most common reportable events and must be reported within 15 days of the event.
Associated Legislation
The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR)https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/1471/contents/made