Record keeping might not seem important at first because it can be tedious. Filling in forms and creating records may not be the most exciting tasks in a workplace, but that does not take away from their value. In this topic, we explore the skills to:
- complete and maintain WHS incident records of occupational injury and disease in the work area according to organisational policies and procedures, and WHS legislative requirements
- use aggregate information and data from work area records to meet organisational recordkeeping requirements.
Keeping records strongly affects the safety of your work environment. Not only is it required by WHS legislation, but it also allows you to determine the best decisions to make for workplace health and safety and promotes risk awareness amongst workers. Importantly, correct records lets regulators know that risks in your organisation are well-managed. The health and safety records that employees are expected to use are usually listed in the organisation's work health and safety policy and procedure. The forms you will be expected to use will depend on your role within the organisation. For example, not all employees will be involved in maintaining training and induction records, WHS committee meeting minutes, workers' compensation and rehabilitation records or safety inspection and audit reports.
The most common records you and your team will be required to keep or contribute to include:
- hazard identification and risk assessments
- register of injuries
- completed incident reports
- first aid and medical records
- equipment records, including inspections, maintenance, and repair
- register of hazardous substances
- safe work method statements.
Keeping records
The Code of Practice for managing health and safety risks states that you must keep records of all WHS operations. Recordkeeping requirements are found in the WHS Regulations and are based on the hazard. There are many reasons for documents to be kept; however, there are two key reasons.
- Firstly, recordkeeping serves to demonstrate how your organisation has been able to comply with WHS legislative requirements. Some records are required for legal reasons, and some will be necessary for quality management purposes, incident investigations, auditing, and the like.
- Secondly, keeping WHS records is also valuable for identifying health and safety issues in the workplace, and of course, in remedying these situations.
When dealing with documentation that relates to WHS, it is essential that you:
- identify your documents with a title, version, date, and the name and title of the author
- ensure that old versions of documents are purged from the document system to save people using the incorrect procedures and following old policies and procedures
- ensure that records are kept adequately secured (for example, those containing medical records should be kept private)
- ensure you have an appropriate document strategy that ensures that each document is reviewed regularly
- confirm appropriate individuals approve all documents
- ensure your documents can be obtained easily by those who require them
- ensure any necessary documents for legal or research reasons are marked clearly and stored for the appropriate length of time.
Information related to storing workplace documents will usually be contained in a specific documentation policy and procedure. It can also be found in any health and safety policies and procedures the organisation has produced.
Which records need to be stored?
WHS records that you must store include:
- instructions, procedures, and organisational policies
- WHS training programs and plans
- audit and inspection reports
- Safety Data Sheets (SDS) for all raw materials and supplies used by the organisation
- dangerous goods listings
- first aid and medical records (as appropriate)
- incident investigation reports
- maintenance records
- minutes of WHS committee meetings, work team meeting agenda items, and outcomes
- risk assessment reports.
Incidents, illnesses and injuries
Do you know the difference between an incident and a notifiable incident? An incident is any unplanned or unscheduled event or occurrence in a sequence of events that usually produces unintended illness, injury, death, or property damage. A notifiable incident occurs when someone in the workplace is harmed or causes harm to others. Serious harm occurs when someone is killed, badly injured, or develops a severe illness.
Do you know the difference between an illness and an injury? An illness is a disease, disorder or sickness affecting the body or mind. An injury is damage, hurt, loss or a wound and can be a physical or emotional injury.
Steps for dealing with an incident
The main steps to take when dealing with an incident are as follows:
Information required when reporting incidents
Incident reporting is an essential step in the incident response process because the information contained in records can identify hazards, improve control measures and prevent future incidents. You must ensure that those records are completed and filed based on the organisation’s procedures and your work area’s legislative requirements. As a supervisor or team leader, you must know what needs to be stored and how it should be stored.
Specific information that should be recorded about the incident includes, but is not limited to, the following:
- Worker information: Provide details such as personal details, job title, occupation, length of time with the organisation, and the particular job.
- Details of the incident: Provide details of the incident include the date, time, location, length of time on the job from the start of work that day
- Nature of the incident: Briefly describe the nature of the incident information typically answers the ‘what’ and ‘how’ concerning an incident
- What was responsible for the incident? For example, machinery, plant or equipment, mobile plant or vehicles, powered equipment or tools, hand tools, chemicals, materials, environmental, animal, or bacterial material.
- How the incident occurred? Briefly describe. For example, did the incident occur as a result of a fall, body stress, biological, mental health, hitting an object, being hit by an object, temperature, heat, radiation, or chemicals?
- Nature of the injury: Briefly describe the nature of the injury requires a brief description which typically refers to:
- Body part affected such as head, neck, upper body limbs, trunk, lower limbs, internal organs, or multiple parts
- Type of injury or illness, for example, fracture, dislocation, sprain, open wound, puncture, burns, bruising, crushing, disease, poisoning, mental disorder.
- Treatment required: Briefly describe the treatment required. For example, Nil, First aid on-site, Doctor, Hospitalisation.
As a supervisor, team leader, or manager your responsibilities include reviewing the information in incident reports. Your organisation will have its version of an incident report form. Be sure to identify and study the guidelines for your organisation’s incident reports to confidently ensure that all reports, whether you are reviewing or creating, are factual, contain the necessary information, and meet your organisational requirements for incident reports.
What is a near miss incident?
A near miss is an incident where no property damage or personal injury occurred, but under a slight difference in time or place, such outcomes would have happened. It is similar to what we might refer to as a 'close call' where an event or situation has the potential to cause but does not actually result in an injury. For example, a spill of a substance qualifies as a near miss incident. Even if no one slipped or property was damaged, either could have happened under slightly different circumstances.
Although no harm or damage was caused, a near miss is still an incident. You must treat a near-miss incident like a notifiable one, meaning that it must be reported following the organisation’s incident reporting procedures. Again, the information in such records can be used to identify hazards and prevent future notifiable incidents and near misses. It is also possible that a regulator needs to be notified of a near-miss incident if it could have caused a severe risk.
A near-miss incident report asks typically for the following information:
- What happened (an overview): Provide an overview of the near miss incident
- When did it happen: Note the date and time
- Where did it happen: Provide the incident address and/or specific details of the location
- What happened: Provide a detailed description of the near miss incident
- What has been/is being done: Describe what action was or is being taken to prevent a recurrence
- Who is notifying: Provide the name of the person reporting and their position in the workplace1
Scenario
Bounce Fitness provides staff with three procedures Bounce Fitness for assessing near misses. These are the Bounce Fitness Incident Investigation Procedure, the Bounce Fitness Hazard Reporting Procedure, and the Bounce Fitness Risk Management Procedure. All new staff are walked through these procedures at their induction sessions, and any changes are provided to staff at refresher courses throughout the year.
In simple terms, to aggregate means to collect and group separate data or information to form a total or a whole. For example, aggregating the number of near misses in a workplace over one month. Once the data is conveyed in a summary form, it is considered information.
Organisations have policies and procedures for recordkeeping including how to store records. As a supervisor, team leader or manager role, you must be the most efficient and organised recordkeeper in your work team! You will need to know the difference between data and information, the specific recordkeeping requirements of your organisation and the system used by your organisation to communicate and retain records.
Data versus information
Let us begin by establishing the difference between data and information.
- Data: Data is made up of facts, numbers, and values that are raw and unfiltered
- Information: Information is simply data that has been processed and presented in a way that makes it worthwhile.
The following table provides examples of data and information involved in workplace health and safety.
| Data | Information |
|---|---|
| Number of incidents in the work area | Risk assessment reports |
| Dates of when incidents occurred | Control measure reviews |
| Nature of injuries sustained from incidents | Recommendations for improving control measures |
| Hazards in the workplace | Documentation describing the likelihood of harm occurring because of a hazard |
| Control measures in place | Issues management logs |
| Number of deaths due to workplace incidents | Notifiable incidents summary report |
| Number of workers attending WHS training and programs | WHS training register |
As you can see, the first column lists examples of data. It is comprised of figures and statistics that have not been processed yet. The second column contains examples of information, such as written reports, logs, registers and reviews. Without data, there cannot be information. For example, you can only determine the severity of harm that a hazard can cause based on data like the number of incidents, the nature of injuries sustained from incidents, and the number of injuries and/or deaths due to incidents.
Scenario
Before Maddison participates in the Bounce Fitness WHS meetings, she reads the most up-to-date Bounce Fitness WHS Issues Management Log to collect the most recent or relevant data for a meeting. For example, data that Maddison collected over one month, from one log record, included the:
- total number of issues/hazards for her gym site
- number of issues/hazards that were resolved and with a status of 'Closed'
- number of issues/hazards that require training for Bounce Fitness team members
- number of issues/hazards that require escalation.
Specific recordkeeping requirements
Recordkeeping requirements in the workplace depend on WHS legislation. In general, the WHS Regulations have particular recordkeeping requirements for the following types of records:
- risk assessments
- incident reports
- health monitoring results
- inspections
- training and licensing records.
Aside from what is listed, your organisation likely has its own set of recordkeeping requirements, and your responsibility is to become familiar with them. Each industry has a different set of requirements. For example, the WHS regulation for diving requires keeping records of dive plans until their work is complete. Regarding hazardous chemicals and lead, these records must be retained by the organisation for at least 30 years after the record is made, even if the worker no longer works at your workplace.1
Identify the system
To ensure that you comply with your organisation’s requirements, you must identify the recordkeeping system in place. Many organisations choose to store their records electronically, but others prefer to keep them as print copies. Regardless of the system, you will find that your organisation ensures that policies and procedures for keeping WHS documents and records are accessible to the entire workplace. Some methods that your organisation may use to communicate the policies and procedures of their system may include:
- password-protected areas of the organisation's intranet
- Microsoft Sharepoint
- displaying recordkeeping policies on a noticeboard
- keeping a list of chemicals used in the work area with Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS)
- converting safety procedures into posters or prints near hazardous equipment
- providing workers with a manual with instructions for recordkeeping procedures in the workplace
- including recordkeeping procedures and policies as parts of the training period.
Use existing information and data records
If you are unsure of what format to use, what data and information are necessary to include in your records, and how to submit them, you can use past records as a guide, and you can always check previously approved records. Using records that your organisation has previously approved gives you a better idea of how you can meet their requirements. If your workplace does not have blank templates for the records, you need to produce and store, follow the most recent record format and confirm that this is appropriate with an appropriate work colleague.
Key points
- It is vitally important that all WHS records of occupational injury and disease incidents in the work area are accurately completed and maintained following WHS legal requirements.
- Incident reports must contain worker information, the details of the incident occurrence, the nature of the incident, and the nature of the injury caused by the incident.
- Data is made up of values, while information is processed data.
- You should use aggregate information and data from work area records to meet your organisation’s recordkeeping requirements.
- You can identify your organisation’s recordkeeping requirements by identifying its recordkeeping system.
The final activity for this topic is a set of questions that will help you prepare for your formal assessment.
