The importance of reporting accidents, incidents and near misses

Monitoring data is a vital tool which should be used by all school senior management teams and the lessons learnt shared to continually improve health and safety culture.

An important step to minimise your accident and incident rate is to ensure the necessary risk assessments are in place to help protect anyone who could be injured or harmed within the workplace. Identified hazards within risk assessments should be evaluated and reasonable control measures should be put in place to reduce the risks from those hazards to an acceptable level which will then reduce the likelihood of an accident.

Schools must make themselves familiar with the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) guidance on how and when to report a RIDDOR related accident which is a legal requirement under the RIDDOR - Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013. Most incidents that happen in schools or on school trips do not need to be reported. The HSE have produced a guidance information sheet for employers to help determine how RIDDOR applies to schools.

• Kent County Council (KCC) schools - Community and Voluntary Controlled should be reporting all accidents, incidents or near misses using the KCC online HS157 accident report form and undertake accident investigations where required using the HS160 investigation form which is an integral part of the accident form.

This includes all threats against protected characteristics against employees or pupils.

• Non KCC schools should be following their own internal accident and incident reporting procedures that have been implemented by their employer, Board of Governors, Academy Trusts, Diocese or Board of Trustees. This also includes any threats against protected characteristics as listed above.
• All schools must report a RIDDOR related accident, incident, occupational disease or a dangerous occurrence to the Health and Safety Executive if the incident meets the RIDDOR reporting criteria.

Whilst KCC ask schools to record racial and bullying incidents using an annual management survey, KCC  Community and Voluntary Controlled Schools must ensure threats against any protected characteristics are recorded on the KCC online HS157 accident report form

If you require any further advice and guidance on accident, incident or near miss reporting, please contact KCC’s health and safety advice line on 03000 41 84 56 or email healthandsafety@kent.gov.uk.

Contact details

KCC health and safety advice line
Telephone: 03000 41 84 56
Email: healthandsafety@kent.gov.uk