Accidents and adverse incidents policy

This policy aims to define for agency staff what occurrences can be regarded as an ‘accident’ or an ‘incident’. Action to be taken in terms of reporting, recording and notifying such occurrences is referenced in the policy document ‘Reporting, recording and notifying accidents, incidents, infectious diseases and deaths incl. RIDDOR arrangements’. Agency staff are reminded also to check the corresponding policy at the client organisation to ensure that any additional requirements at the location of the assignment are adhered to.

Definitions

INCIDENT: We use the word incident here to cover anything that occurs in the workplace that could cause a situation that results in harm to people, damage to property or loss of service capacity, including accidents.

NEAR MISS: Describes an event that could have caused injury but narrowly missed doing so.

CRITICAL INCIDENT: The term ‘critical’ is used to reflect the actual or potential severity of the impact and the consequences of the event and would include the death or serious injury of a service user, visitor or staff member, serious assaults or serious medication incidents.

RIDDOR: The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR) places a statutory duty upon the Agency to report and record all accidents, incidents, diseases and dangerous occurrences arising out of work activities.

DANGEROUS OCCURENCE: The term Dangerous Occurrence when applied to these guide-lines, relates exclusively to the definition of Dangerous Occurrence contained in the RIDDOR Regulations 1995.

LOST TIME INCIDENT: Major or other accidents resulting in absence from duty for over three days, excluding the day of the accident. This is reportable under RIDDOR to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

MAJOR INJURY: Any injury included in the list under RIDDOR

CONTEMPORANEOUS: Contemporaneous records are those made during and immediately after the incident. This is essential for providing an accurate account of what happened. Failure to keep contemporaneous records could prejudice the validity of the evidence in court proceedings

Further guidance can be found When do I need to report an incident? - RIDDOR - HSE

Incident reporting and recording procedure

When an incident is reported to the company, the following steps are completed:

i. An incident case file is opened using Folder ‘Incident Records-SC’, with an entry on the Incident Log created alongside a separate file folder in which to store documents specific to the incident;

ii. The incident is reported to the Nursing Manager who is responsible for overseeing follow-up and close-off in collaboration with the candidate, Direct Medics staff service users and/or regulatory bodies as appropriate;

iii. All relevant documents are stored in the appropriate case file folder, and a log of contacts and close-off is stored in the Incident Log.