Accidents happen for many reasons including overconfidence, poor housekeeping, workplace distractions, human factors such as taking shortcuts, ignoring safety procedures and organisational factors including lack of information, poor preparation.

Examine all incident / accident / near-miss reports and identify trends. Look at root or underlying issues, not just immediate causes: immediate causes – premises, plant and substances, procedures, or people; underlying causes – management arrangements and organisational factors such as design, selection of materials, maintenance, management of change, adequacy of risk controls, communication, competence etc.

Preventative action – introduction of further controls, RIDDOR reporting etc