The Late Reporting of Incidents

The late reporting of incidents can be a difficult trend to reverse. First of all, no one likes to be the bearer of bad news, and a concerned management team will consider any accident bad news. Second, if your culture is known for accepting late reports without consequences, the trend will probably continue. There probably are a variety of reasons why any particular incident is not reported within the required time frame. A classic excuse still used with some measure of success is that the injured or reporting person was not aware that the incident was a reportable incident until after the acceptable reporting period had lapsed. For personal injuries, maybe an event occurred some weeks ago that was thought to be minor. Maybe the team member reported the injury but did not feel that it warranted incident status. Or maybe the team member failed to report the injury because the injury was believed to be minor at the time of the occurrence. 

Another unacceptable excuse used to justify late reporting of acci-dents/incidents is the lack of understanding by the safety department. For instance, if the safety department does not accept or gives back acci-dent/incident reports that are incomplete and deemed unacceptable, supervisors have been known to use this as an excuse for late reporting. From the supervisor s point of view, there is little reason to turn in a report that is incomplete when that supervisor realizes that the report will be kicked back by the safety department when the shortcoming is realized. In this case, the supervisor might wonder why the report should not just 

Late reporting of incidents indicates a need for culture development. Incident reporting should be performed within the required time frames with no room for late reporting. When a team member mentions even the most minor of incidents, the supervisor must realize the potential for this report to change over time. The procedures for reporting such an incident must be adhered to. Even if there is no provision for formally reporting a minor incident, the supervisor should jot down the informal report in his or her planner and note the event for future reference. 

There is truly no excuse for late reporting. If a team member reports an injury late for any reason, an appropriate action to alleviate the situation in the future should be implemented. This plan might include counseling, training, noting this performance during the performance review, disciplinary action, or other action. 

Pictures should be taken of the accident scene. K contributory causes of the accident included site conditions, some pictures of those conditions should be taken. People reviewing the report should understand what the conditions were that contributed to the incident. A picture can help recreate the incident scene. 

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