Health & Safety Bulletin – Incident Reporting and Investigation Process – June 19

Incident Reporting and Investigation Process – establishes the methods and practices for providing notification, investigation, classification and reporting of incidents. The process aims to ensure that all employees, visitors and contractors onsite are provided with information on incident reporting and investigation during induction to ensure timely reporting of incidents to their relevant Managers within 24 hours or as soon as reasonably practicable after they occur.

Under the respective Workplace Health and Safety jurisdictions, a notifiable incident includes the following:

• Death of a person
• A serious injury or illness,
• A dangerous incident, and
• Any injury or illness for which in the opinion of the medical practitioner is likely to prevent the employee from being able to work within 10 days of the day on which the injury occurred.

Occupational Injury – is any injury such as a cut, a fracture, a sprain, an amputation, etc. which results from work related activity or from exposure involving a single incident in the work environment, such as deafness from explosion, one-time chemical exposure, back disorder from a slip/trip and insect or snake bite. Incidents are further classified as follows:

• Near Miss is an incident where there are no visible signs of injury or damage. A near miss is an incident that has not caused harm to people, property or the environment but had the potential to do so.
• Fatality is a death resulting from a work injury, regardless of the time intervening between injury and death.
• Lost Time Injury is a work injury which results in inability to work for at least one full day or shift any time after the day or shift to which the incident occurred; this forms in conjunction with lost wages claim thru workplace insurance.
• Restricted Work Case is a work-related injury or illness that results in limitations on work activity that prevent an employee from doing any tasks or his/her normal job for any part of the day.
• Medical Treatment Injury is an injury that requires treatment by, or under specific orders of a medical practitioner and which is beyond the scope of normal first aid but does not result in Lost Time.
• Minor Injury is considered a First Aid treatment, a one-time treatment and any follow-up treatment for observation of minor scratches, burns, splinters and the like which do not require medical care.

Recording and Reporting Incidents – incidents regardless of their nature will need to be reported using the Incident Report Form (IRF).