Preventing Accidents

BSC International Diploma | Unit 1
Element 1A: Fundamentals of Health and Safety Management
C O N T E N T S
Study Unit Title Page
1A1 Preventing Accidents
ACCIDENTS, INCIDENTS AND NEAR MISSES...................................................................................................... 3
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................................ 3
DEFINITION OF ACCIDENT, INCIDENT AND NEAR MISS ........................................................................................................... 3
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ACCIDENTS, INCIDENTS AND NEAR MISSES......................................................................................... 4
WHAT CAUSES ACCIDENTS................................................................................................................................. 6
DOMINO THEORY.......................................................................................................................................................... 6
UNSAFE ACTS............................................................................................................................................................... 8
UNSAFE CONDITIONS..................................................................................................................................................... 9
MULTI-CAUSAL THEORIES ............................................................................................................................................. 10
COSTS ARISING FROM ACCIDENTS.................................................................................................................. 12
CONSIDERING OUTCOMES OF EVENTS .............................................................................................................................. 12
INSURED AND UNINSURED COSTS ................................................................................................................................... 14
ACCIDENT COST ANALYSIS .............................................................................................................................. 16
DIRECT AND INDIRECT LOSSES....................................................................................................................................... 16
COST BENEFIT GRAPH.................................................................................................................................................. 17
RISK CONTROL COST DECISIONS .................................................................................................................................... 17
CALCULATING ACCIDENT COSTS...................................................................................................................................... 18
REASONS FOR PREVENTING ACCIDENTS ......................................................................................................... 19
MORAL ..................................................................................................................................................................... 19
LEGAL ...................................................................................................................................................................... 19
ECONOMIC ................................................................................................................................................................ 19
ACCIDENT PREVENTION STRATEGY ................................................................................................................. 20

BSC International Diploma - Element 1A | Fundamentals of Health and Safety Management
Page 2 of 20 ©British Safety Council
BSC International Diploma | Unit 1
Element 1A: Fundamentals of Health and Safety Management
Study Unit 1A1 | Preventing Accidents
Learning Outcomes
When you have worked through this Study Unit, you will be able to:
1.A.1.1 Explain the importance of and relationship between incidents and accidents
1.A.1.2 Explain why accidents occur
1.A.1.3 Explain the costs of accidents
1.A.1.4 Explain the need to prevent accidents
1.A.1.5 Implement an accident prevention strategy
Unit 1:

Accidents, Incidents and Near Misses
Introduction
According to estimates by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the number of job-
related accidents and illnesses, which annually claim more than two million lives, appears to be
rising because of rapid industrialisation in some developing countries.
An assessment of workplace accidents and illness indicates that the risk of occupational
disease has become the most prevalent danger faced by people at their jobs, accounting for
1.7 million annual work-related deaths and out pacing fatal accidents by four to one.
In estimates, the ILO found that in addition to job-related deaths, each year there are some
268 million non-fatal workplace accidents in which the victims miss at least three days of work
as a result, as well as 160 million new cases of work-related illness. The ILO has previously
estimated that workplace accidents and illness are responsible for the loss of some four per
cent of the world’s GDP in compensation and absence from work.
Broken down by region, the figures indicate that workplace accidents have levelled off in many
industrialised and newly-industrialised countries, while some countries (now undergoing rapid
development in Asia and Latin America) are experiencing increases. For example, the ILO
analysis showed that while the number of fatal and non-fatal workplace accidents held steady
or declined in most regions, in China the estimated number of fatal accidents rose from 73,500
in 1998 to 90,500 in 2001, while accidents causing three or more days absence from work
increased from 56 million to 69 million. Meanwhile, in Latin America, a rise in the total number
of persons employed and growth in the construction sector, particularly in Brazil and Mexico,
appear to have lead to an annual increase in fatal accidents from 29,500 to 39,500 over the
same time period.
Faced with a rising toll of occupational-related death, injury and sickness, international bodies
such as the ILO, the World Health Organisation (WHO), the European Agency for Safety and
Health at Work, and others highlight the need for a preventative safety culture worldwide.
Definition of Accident, Incident and Near Miss
According to the UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) document HSG65, accidents,
incidents and near misses are defined accordingly:
Incident
An incident is an event that includes all undesired circumstances and “near misses’’ that could
cause accidents.
Accident
The HSE defines an accident as “any undesired circumstances which give rise to: ill-health or
injury; damage to property, plant, products or the environment; production losses or increased
liabilities”. This would suggest that an accident is an event with an adverse outcome that
results from a combination of undesired circumstances.
Near Miss
Near misses (or near hits) are any form of incident that could have resulted in injury or loss
but did not. Examples include:
 A worker realises that the guard is missing and pulls his hand out, just getting a smear of
oil on his fingers.

 A piece of material is ejected from a machine and lands on the floor of the workshop
some distance away, missing the window.
 A worker runs into the car park and stumbles, but regains her balance and carries on
unharmed.
Relationship Between Accidents, Incidents and Near Misses
Activities at work often give rise to incidents. The outcome of these incidents may (but not
necessarily do) cause harm to people as well as loss. Accidents are a particular type of
incident and these result in loss, personal (minor) injury, serious injury or death. Where no
such outcome results, the incident is classified as a near miss.
Accident Ratio Studies and Their Limitations
There appears to be a relationship between a number of different types of accident.
F. E. Bird used accident data to produce the following accident triangle:
Bird’s Accident Ratio Triangle
Other researchers have produced similar accident ratio triangles:
It is interesting to note the variations in the findings of these surveys although, regardless of
the actual data presented there is a consistent pattern that shows that there are always many
more near misses than serious injuries. What should be obvious is that the larger figure of
near miss incidents is a much better measure of accident potential than the smaller figure of
actual injuries.
1
10
30
600
Serious or disabling injury
Minor injuries (first-aid injuries)
Damage accidents
Accidents with no damage - near miss accidents
1
60
400
Fatal
Major
Over-3-day
1
29
300
Major or lost time
Minor
No injury accidents
RIDDOR Heinrich

Problems can arise when using accident ratios as a means of predicting accident rates in the
workplace and comparing performance. Care needs to be taken to ensure that the basis on
which the statistics were originally prepared is the same, or that the workplaces themselves
being assessed are directly comparable. Where this is not the case, any comparison with other
organisations would be meaningless.
Another limitation of statistical analysis is the extent to which the numbers involved allow
meaningful conclusions to be drawn. This is known as "statistical significance". Often, the
numbers for an individual workplace are too low to allow meaningful comparisons with the
much larger numbers involved across the industry as a whole.

What Causes Accidents
Domino Theory
According to Heinrich:
"A preventable accident is one of five factors in a sequence that results in an injury. The
injury is invariably caused by an accident and the accident in turn is always the result of
the factor that immediately precedes it."
The five factors in his accident sequence are summarised in the following table.
Heinrich's Accident Sequence
Accident Factors Description
1. Ancestry and social
environment
Recklessness, stubbornness, greed and other
undesirable traits of character that may be passed
along through inheritance. Environment may develop
undesirable traits of character or may interfere with
education. Both inheritance and environment may
cause faults of person.
2. Fault of person
Inherited or acquired faults of person such as
recklessness, violent temper, nervousness, excitability.
These constitute reasons for committing unsafe acts or
for the existence of mechanical or physical hazards.
3. Unsafe act and/or
mechanical or physical
hazard
Unsafe performance of persons such as: standing
under danger areas, careless starting of machines,
removal of safeguards and horseplay; mechanical or
physical hazards such as unguarded gears or points of
operation, insufficient light, which result in accidents?
4. Accident
Events such as falls of persons, striking of persons by
flying objects, etc. are typical accidents that cause
injury.
5. Injury
Fractures, lacerations, etc. are injuries that result
directly from accidents.

Bird and Loftus extended Heinrich's theory to encompass the influence of management in
the cause and effect of accidents. They suggested a modified sequence of events as follows:
1. Lack of control by management.
2. This permits the existence of basic or underlying causes (i.e. personal and job factors).
3. In turn, this leads to immediate causes (such as unsafe acts or unsafe conditions)
4. Which leads to the incident in question.
5. Finally resulting in some kind of loss
This modified sequence can be applied to every accident and is of basic importance to loss
control management.
The major point that Heinrich and Bird makes is that a preventable injury is the natural
culmination of a series of events or circumstances that occur in a fixed logical order. Here an
analogy can be made with a row of dominoes placed on end such that if one falls it will cause
the next to fall and so on throughout the series If one of the dominoes is removed then the
chain of events will be halted.
Accident Domino Sequence
Similarly, if the accident sequence is interrupted by the elimination of even one of the factors
that comprise it, then the loss cannot occur and the accident has been prevented. In the case
of the accident sequence, perhaps the easiest factor to eliminate is Number 3 “the immediate
causes” which we define as "unsafe act and/or unsafe conditions".
Unsafe acts and conditions are often caused by a range of underlying causes such as lack of
policy or procedure, poor training, no systems of work, poor supervision etc which in turn may
be due to a lack of interest or support of senior management.
To quote from HSG65: “The immediate cause (of an accident) may be a human or technical
failure, but they usually arise from organisational failings which are the responsibility of
management.”
Accident LossLack of
Management
Control
Basic
underlying
Causes
Immediate
causes

Unsafe Acts
Let us consider an example. In a wood yard, some lengths of timber were being stacked when
the “siren” sounded to signal the start of the morning tea-break. The stackers quickly finished
their job and went for tea. After tea they resumed work in another part of the yard.
Unfortunately, they had left some of the timber in the first stack sticking out into the access
path. Later, at dusk, another employee came along, omitted to turn on the appropriate yard
lights and tripped over the poorly-stacked timber.
In another example, in the same yard, one of the other workers used a defective ladder, with
the result that he fell and broke his arm and sustained laceration to a leg in addition to other
superficial injuries. Subsequent investigation revealed that the ladder had a non-slip safety
foot on only one leg and that it had been too long for the job in hand. The result was that it
was pitched at an excessively shallow angle, consequently causing it to slip at its base.
In both examples, accidents occurred because of unsafe acts. In one case, a third party was
injured; in the other, the unsafe act was done by the injured party.
Examples of Unsafe Acts
Unsafe acts of persons may be considered under the following headings:
 Operating without authority.
 Operating or working at unsafe speed.
 Rendering safety devices inoperative.
 Using unsafe equipment, or using equipment unsafely.
 Unsafe methods, e.g. loading, carrying, mixing.
 Adopting unsafe position or posture.
 Working on moving or dangerous equipment.
 Horseplay, e.g. distracting, teasing, startling.
 Failure to wear safe clothing or use personal protective devices.
 Lack of concentration; fatigue or ill-health.
Types of Unsafe Act
From an accident prevention point of view, it is useful to classify two types of unsafe act:
active and passive.
Active Unsafe Acts
An obvious example of the active type of unsafe act is the case where a worker deliberately
removes a safety guard, possibly to improve his rate of production. This act, coupled with the
fact that he is now working faster, may produce more errors and/or stress. Many of these
errors may go unnoticed, some may produce near-misses, but eventually, by the law of
averages, an injury accident will ensue.
Of course, it is difficult to control a person’s behaviour, but the most effective measures have
been found to be through proper training and adequate supervision.
Passive Unsafe Acts
Passive unsafe acts are generally more difficult to deal with. An example here might be the
failure of an employee to wear Personal Protection when clearly everyone knows that they

should. There will be a range of possible reasons why the protection is not worn and these
passive acts are often very difficult to change. Modifications to behaviour can be made through
participation and consultation schemes, training programmes and effective supervision.
Unsafe Conditions
Mechanical
For many years machinery has been responsible for many industrial accidents around the
world. Government legislation was enacted improved techniques in machine guarding,
ergonomic design and an increased awareness of moral and social responsibilities have
combined to drastically reduce the number of injuries attributable to machinery accidents.
This still leaves considerable cause for concern, because machine accident injuries are usually
severe, and often result in partial or even permanent disablement.
Although there are regulations and standards relating to the fencing and guarding of
dangerous machinery, most accidents arise because of lack of provision of adequate guards or
because of failure to use the guards provided. Sometimes it is not possible to make guards
that are 100% effective at all times and automatic and interlocking guards should not be
regarded as infallible. Nevertheless, all guards should be well designed, correctly adjusted,
adequately maintained and tested or inspected regularly.
Some machines may be left unguarded because they are presumed to be 'safe by position'.
No machinery can really be safe by position because its relative safety depends upon the
proximity of people, and a person near the machine is, or is not, safe by position.
In one case, a drive shaft and motor were sited unguarded high up on an internal wall of a
factory. It was thought to be safe by position. At some later date, when alterations were
being carried out, a worker on a ladder outside the factory reached through a hole in the wall
with the result that his arm was amputated.
Machines may sometimes be started by mistake or without the appropriate authorisation. One
example is where a machine is stopped for routine maintenance or adjustment. This might not
be obvious to the operative, particularly on a change of shift, who may start the machine,
causing injury to the mechanic.
The remedy in such cases lies in the adoption of a safe system of work, including a permit-to-
work. This commonly involves advising the supervisor at the start and completion of the job,
removing fuses, locking or covering starter switches, and hanging the appropriate notices. It
is essential the maintenance work should be unable to proceed without the necessary
authorisation, duly signed by the appropriate supervisor as necessary.
Physical
Industrial psychologists have spent a great deal of time in examining how operator
performance varies as external conditions change, the idea being that there is an optimum
condition for performing each kind of task. For example, when conditions of lighting, heating,
ventilation, humidity and noise are closely studied, it has been found there is some desirable
range within which an operator will function efficiently. Anything outside that range, either too
little or too much, will adversely affect his performance. However, many workers will make an
extra effort to maintain a given output despite a deterioration of working conditions. In such
cases it has been found that this is usually accompanied by an increase in the frequency and
severity of accidents.

Temperature
Many experiments have been carried out on the effects of temperature. The main variables
are air temperature, humidity, air flow and the operator's clothing and activity. The general
consensus is that conditions for thermal comfort, work efficiency and minimum accident rates
are much the same. Temperatures in the range 16-24°C appear to be acceptable for most
people, with the heavier workloads at the low end of the range and sedentary tasks at the
higher end. Very hard work, or the use of protective clothing, will lower this temperature
range, while it will be raised by high air movement (which gives greater body cooling).
Noise
The effect of noise is extremely complex. It is known that noise can damage the auditory
mechanism and that prolonged exposure to levels above 120 dB (decibels) causes permanent
damage. Lower levels interfere with speech and communication and there can also be
interference with working efficiency. Errors have been found to increase with noise and non-
auditory effects, such as loss of touch sensitivity, have been reported. Either of these effects
could easily be responsible for an accident.
Examples of Unsafe Conditions
The following examples describe unsafe conditions from which an accident may result:
 Inadequate guarding; guards of inadequate height, strength, mesh, etc.
 Unguarded machinery or the absence of the required guards.
 Defective, rough, sharp, slippery, decayed, cracked surfaces.
 Unsafely designed machines, tools.
 Unsafe arrangement, poor housekeeping, congestion, blocked exits.
 Inadequate lighting, glare, reflection.
 Inadequate ventilation, contaminated air.
 Unsafe processes - mechanical, chemical, electrical, and nuclear.
 Hot, humid or noisy environment.
This is not to say that an unsafe act or unsafe condition alone could not result in an accident.
For example, horseplay is an unsafe act that could take place in otherwise safe conditions, but
could nevertheless result in an accident. Similarly, a person could be working in a perfectly
safe manner, using safe equipment and materials that are without hazard, but suffer injuries as
the result of the collapse of a floor riddled with woodworm and dry rot. (One could argue,
however, that collapse of the floor was due to an unsafe act, i.e. failure to inspect the floor and
supporting joists and failure to calculate the floor loadings.)
Multi-Causal Theories
There is often more than one cause of an accident, not only in sequence, but occurring at the
same time. For example, a methane explosion requires:
 Methane in the explosive range of 5% to 15%.
 Oxygen or air.
 Ignition source.

The ignition will only happen if these three events occur together. Each of the three events
may, in themselves, be the end result of a number of different sequences of events. In
accident investigation, all causes must be identified.
Systems Theory
This is another way of looking at a multiple cause situation.
Factories and processes may be treated as systems, i.e. an assembly of parts or components
connected together in some organised way to perform some task, with inputs and outputs and
various kinds of control mechanisms.
A systems approach is often useful in simplifying complex operations. Part of the system can
be taken as a 'black box', with only the inputs and outputs considered.
System failures are prevented or minimised by components that cannot fail, by back-up
systems, or by redundancy built into the system. Accidents happen in our system because it
includes fallible components such as machines and human beings. The system is operating in
the failure mode.
The essential features of the multiple causation approach are shown diagrammatically in the
figure that follows.
Features of the Multiple Causation Approach
Sub Causes
Cause a
Cause b
Cause c
Cause d
Cause f
Cause e
Unsafe
Act
Unsafe
Condition
Accident
Injury,
Damage
or Near-miss

Costs Arising from Accidents
Most accidents are minor in nature but may stop production for some time and lead to the
injured employee being away from work for a few days. This involves the cost of lost
production, and sick pay, etc. A major accident, on the other hand, can lead to a prolonged
absence from work for the employee involved and the costs of an investigation during which
equipment and machinery may be at a standstill.
Considering Outcomes of events
As explained earlier an accident is an event with an adverse outcome that results from a
combination of undesired circumstances.
Incidents include all loss making and non-loss making events but of course the outcome of any
event is often a matter of chance and they may not lead to a loss at all. It is useful to consider
the outcome of the event as being one of four types that can help us to determine the
associated costs of the event:
 A: Those causing no injury.
 B: Those causing no injury but damaging property.
 C: Those causing injury but no property damage.
 D: Those causing injury and property damage.
Incident Outcomes
no property damage property damage
A B
No injury A person steps on banana skin -
does not slip
Steps on banana skin - slips -
drops cup which breaks
C D
Injury Steps on banana skin - slips -
sprains ankle
Steps on banana skin - slips -
sprains ankle - drops cup which
breaks
There will be costs associated with any event, even the no-injury/no property damage event
might incur costs associated with reporting and recording the event. But of course the more
insignificant the event, the less cost will be attributed.
Direct and Indirect Costs
Costs of accidents may be split into two types:
 Those relating directly to the incident.
 Those relating indirectly to the incident.
Some examples are given below:

Type A accidents
• Direct costs
None.
• Indirect costs
Negligible. Possibly the cost associated with reporting and recording the “near miss”.
Type B Accidents
• Direct Costs
− Cost of replacement property.
− Cost of repair to property.
• Indirect Costs
− Waste of material and time spent on job to date.
− Downtime awaiting repair.
− Downtime awaiting replacement.
Type C Accidents
• Direct Costs
− Costs of medical treatment - first-aid, ambulance, etc.
− Compensation payments.
− Fines for breach of statutory duty.
− Legal fees
• Indirect Costs
Lost time due to:
− Workers stopping to assist sympathise or discuss the incident.
− Machinery stoppage to free victim.
− Supervisors assisting victim.
− Persons investigating accident.
− Rearrangement of schedules.
− Preparation of reports.
− Attendances at courts of law.
− Hospital visits.
− Visits to relatives.
Lost profit due to:
− Loss of victim's production.
− Cost of training replacement.
− Reduced productivity, wages and overtime.
− Failure to meet production dates.

− Cancellation of orders.
− Loss of future orders.
Lost overheads due to:
− Higher insurance premiums.
− Plant and staff idle.
− Cost of plant hire.
Incidental costs:
− Difficulty recruiting good staff.
− Poor staff causing increase in waste.
− Poor workers having more accidents.
Type D Accidents
These are likely to include, at least, all the costs involved in Class B and C accidents.
Insured and Uninsured Costs
Employers will invariably take out insurance to cover themselves against potential losses
caused by such events as fire and theft. In many countries they are also required by law to
have insurance against certain types of liability, as discussed below. However, many of the
costs involved in respect of accidents at work are not covered by insurance.
Uninsured costs include all indirect costs as well as those relating to loss of production as a
result of many types of incident. In addition, the insurance to cover loss in respect of certain
events may be void where it may be shown that the employer has not taken adequate
precautions to prevent the incident.
Employers’ liability insurance is a legal requirement in the UK (under the Employers’ Liability
(Compulsory Insurance) Regulations 1998) and without it a company cannot trade. It is
required to cover the claims which may be brought in respect of the employer’s civil liabilities –
such as negligence, breach of statutory duty, etc. – and the minimum insurance is for £5
million.
Insurance claims under employers’ liability insurance have outstripped premium increases in
recent years, partly due to increased public awareness and concern about health. Also, people
are more ready to claim, and compensation payments as well as legal costs are continuing to
rise. These factors are causing great concern among insurers, who fear the future cost of
today’s health hazards (particularly issues such as work-related upper limb disorder and
passive smoking). Employers’ liability insurance premiums can rise dramatically for employers
who cannot show evidence that risks are being managed, and some companies may well
become uninsurable.

It is useful to be able to distinguish between the different cost elements and the following
figure represents examples of types of accidents costs that make up the overall costs of an
accident.
INSURED
Employers’ liability Business interruption I
D Public liability Product liability N
I Damage to buildings D
R Damage to vehicles I
E Sick pay Investigation costs R
C Repairs Loss of goodwill E
T Product lost/damaged Loss of corporate image C
Hiring and training of replacement
staff
T
UNINSURED
Costs Associated with Accidents and Losses
Each of these types of cost needs to be calculated. The easiest is the direct insured costs; a
premium will be paid and any loss will (hopefully) be covered by the insurance. The indirect
but insured costs will be partly covered by the insurance. Here the problem is that it is never
possible to ensure that the entire cost can be forecast and so insured. In any case, the risk
manager will be seeking to reduce the insurance burden by retaining risks that can be
controlled in other ways.
The indirect and uninsured costs will need careful consideration, and are the costs of things
like future loss of sales due to poor public image and loss of goodwill or the costs associated
with the investigation itself or the recruitment of any replacement labour needed as a
consequence of the accident:
In a survey undertaken by the HSE it was found that that for every £1 that employers spend
on insurance, the uninsured costs of accidents over a year amounted to between 8 and 36
times that amount. This is the reason why the direct costs of accidents are often considered
to be just the “tip of iceburg”.

Accident Cost Analysis
Direct and Indirect Losses
We have discussed the costs associated with accidents and when measuring potential losses,
both indirect and direct losses must be considered. The problem here is that it is relatively
straightforward to calculate the direct costs of an accident (if we have robust systems for
capturing the data) but when calculating the indirect losses we may have to rely on reasonable
assumptions and prediction which may not be entirely accurate but should be a close
estimation so as to afford the opportunity for senior management to understand the impact of
the accident on the financial standing of the business.
If we are going to capture, analyse and present accident cost data as part of our performance
monitoring programme we need to have a reliable cost for an injury accident, and for damage
accidents. This will usually involve filling in an accident cost sheet. The following is an
example of such a form.
ACCIDENT COST SHEET
Location
Description of Accident
Type of Accident: Lost-time injury
Damage/(delete those not applicable) Non-lost-time injury
Details of injury to employee(s) and/or damage to plant, equipment or materials
Date of accident
Number of days lost (lost-time injuries only)
Cost Element £
1. Safety administration costs
2. Medical centre costs
3. Cost of lost time of injured employee
4. Cost of replacement labour
5. Costs of welfare (or other) payments (made by company) to
employee
6. Cost of lost production
8. Cost of repair/replacement of damaged plant/equipment
(a) Labour cost
(b) Materials cost
9. Cost of damaged materials
10. Other costs
Total £
Accident Cost Sheet

Cost Benefit Graph
There are costs involved with all accidents and losses. There will also be costs involved with
accident prevention and risk reduction. It is possible to spend more on risk treatment than we
save by the reduction of the losses. The cost-benefit graph is illustrated in the next figure.
Cost-Benefit Graph
This graph shows the position where there is maximum benefit and suggests that there is a
point where putting more money and resources into a project can achieve no further benefit
and therefore is considered wasteful and unnecessary.
The safety practitioner is often asked to carry out such an analysis for the safety measures that
he is proposing.
Risk Control Cost Decisions
Cost Areas
There is obviously a cost implication from controlling any kind of risk. These costs can be split
into the following areas:
• Organisational
These are the costs of staff, and the time involved in investigation, records and first-aid
and medical provision.
• Design
Reduction of accidents will involve engineering aspects, such as the purchase and
fabrication of safety devices. Safety systems need to be designed and programms for
recording and costing losses will have to be tried out.
• Planning
New safe methods of work, permit-to-work schemes and factory layouts could be
considered here.
• Operational
Consideration must be given to the costs of running and maintaining safety systems,
maintaining guards and interlocks, providing PPE as well as carrying out sampling and
testing.
POSITIVE
BENEFIT
COST OF SAFETY
MAXIMUM BENEFIT
NEGATIVE BENEFIT
+
−
BENEFIT
0

Calculating Accident Costs
The UK’s HSE has published a series of examples of accident costs. Students are encouraged
to review the HSE website at http://www.hse.gov.uk/costs/index.asp

Reasons for Preventing Accidents
Moral
It is widely accepted that moral reasons should be the prime reason for managing risk,
although whether this is actually the case is open to debate in some cases.
There is a need for maintaining a moral code within our society. Without it, employers can be
tempted to treat the health and safety of the workforce as being of lower importance than
financial profit.
Moral reasons are based on the concept of an employer owing a duty of reasonable care to
his or her employees. A person does not expect to risk life and limb, or physical health, as a
condition of employment.
Society expects every employer to demonstrate a correct attitude to health and safety to his or
her workforce. It is totally unacceptable to place employees in situations where their health
and safety is at risk.
In addition to the obvious duties owed by an employer to his or her workers, he or she also
has a moral obligation to protect other people whose health and safety may be affected by the
undertaking, for example, contractors or members of the public.
Legal
Over the years, many moral obligations have been turned into health and safety legislation.
The "duty of care" is seen in the UK’s common law judgments. The UK’s Health and
Safety at Work, etc. Act 1974 (HSWA), and Regulations made under it, follows a long list
of legal enactments that reinforce the duty of care.
Many countries have introduced their own legal duties regarding the protection of workers
from harm and where this is not the case adoption of other countries’ health and safety laws
as best practice is common.
There are strong legal reasons for employers to manage risk:
 Preventive - enforcement notices (improvement or prohibition) can be issued by
enforcement inspectors.
 Punitive - where the criminal courts impose fines and imprisonment for breaches of legal
duties. These punishments can be given to the company or to individuals within the
company.
 Compensatory - where employees are able to sue in the civil courts for compensation.
Economic
As has been explained accidents and ill-health are costly and the indirect costs involved are
often substantially more than direct costs. The financial burden placed on employers is often a
key factor in the ownership and development of safety management systems that will help to
reduce the costs of failure and sub-standard practice at work.
The Safety Practitioner will often be required to develop budgets and justifications for
implementing safety initiatives and it is here that a sound knowledge and understanding of the
costs associated with poor practice is essential if proposals and business cases are to be
successful.

Accident Prevention Strategy
An accident prevention strategy is a long-term plan of action designed to prevent accidents
from happening. Of course, the strategy may be aimed at specific accident types or may
be more general. Accident prevention means implementing measures to prevent them
from happening. It will, necessarily, involve identifying how accidents can occur.
We have already seen earlier in this study unit that accidents can result in different types
of loss. The resulting cost to the company can be measured not only in terms of its effect
on people’s lives, but also in terms of the financial cost to the business. We have also
seen that behind serious incidents, there are many more near-miss events that could
easily have led to something more serious – the underlying causes are the same.
Therefore, because many of the causal factors are the same, it makes sense to use a total
loss approach – where the aim is to control all accidental loss.
Accident prevention, when applied to a complex organisation, can be quite daunting. We
have already considered the myriad causes of accidents – arising from workplace,
organisational, personal, job factors, etc. Many causes can ultimately be linked to a failure
(or lack) of management systems. An overall approach to long-term accident prevention is
therefore to effectively manage it. This can be done by implementing a safety
management system; these are described in detail in Element 1A4.

Preventing Accidents

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