Renfrewshire Council

Accident and incident reporting

What to do, and who to contact when an accident or incident occurs at work.

We aim to provide a safe and healthy working environment for all employees and service users. 

We accept that our employees should have a safe working environment whilst at work and will take all reasonably practicable steps to minimise accidents/incidents at work. We're committed to accident/incident reporting and investigation to assist in this process.

An accident or incident can happen in any workplace, whether in a council building, public space or when working from home.

Investigating events supports managers to learn lessons from what happened and identify actions to prevent ill health or damage happening in future.  

Services can help with this by ensuring all events (accidents, incidents or near misses) are reported as quickly as possible.  

Our Accident/Incident reporting guidance [363KB] complies with the requirements of Health & Safety Regulations as defined in the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR).

You can watch our new accident and incident reporting guidance videos on YouTube.

Please follow the steps below when an accident or incident occurs.

  1. Make sure no one else can be injured.
  2. Request First Aid assistance or call the emergency services if required.
  3. Ensure the area safe and secure (Potentially this could be a crime scene).
  4. Inform manager, supervisor, or head teacher.
  5. Contact the health and safety team and service health and safety coordinator.
  6. Manager, supervisor or head teacher should gather initial information.
  7. Ensure the accident/incident form on Business World ERP is completed in as much detail as possible, as soon as possible and within 24 hours.
  8. This will be reviewed by H&S and escalated accordingly.
  9. H&S team and H&S coordinator will issue a safety alert/communication where required.
  10. Depending on seriousness of incident, investigation will be carried out by H&S team to prevent potential reoccurrence.
  11. Actions or outcomes as a result of the investigation should be completed in a timely manner.

If in any doubt please contact the Health and Safety team at - healthandsafetyenquiries@renfrewshire.gov.uk