By Joanna Weekes

If a health and safety incident occurs in your workplace, your managers and your workers need to know what to do in the aftermath.

It is essential that you have procedures in place for:

• reporting an incident;
• notifying the health and safety regulator (if the incident is notifiable);
• preserving the incident site; and
• investigating the incident.

Make these procedures available to all workers and train them in the procedures to ensure your workers know their role if a workplace incident were to occur.

While the best policy is always prevention, you need to know how to react as well to minimise the damage.

Today we have a checklist for you regarding carrying out an internal investigation and the type of information you need to gather and include in your investigation report.

What to include in an investigation report

Gather the following information to include in the investigation report:

• a description of the injured person’s condition or the damage to property or environment;
• photographs of the site;
• brief notes of the interview with the injured worker and other witnesses;
• details of where any plant or equipment involved in the incident is now located (if it has been moved);
• contact details of any witnesses who were not interviewed; and
• brief notes by the investigating worker as to the circumstances in which the incident occurred.

Remember, it is important that the report does not include any speculation or opinion as to the cause of the incident.

The next update to be sent out for the OH&S Handbook includes a revised and updated version of I1 Incident Reporting and Investigation so keep a look out for that if you subscribe to the Handbook, it will be sent out to you soon.