I regard the health and safety reporting of construction near misses by supervisors and the workforce to be the most significant cultural change in making sites safer.
“Near Miss: an event not causing harm, but has the potential to cause injury or ill health“
HSE Accidents and Investigations
This did not happen earlier in my career due to fear of criticism, discipline and loss of pride.
Supervisors and the workforce now report construction near misses to site management. Near miss trends are analysed and actions taken to prevent reoccurrence or becoming even worse and cause an injury.
The fear of criticism however did not go away when it came to reporting accidents. Sometimes I found it frustrating that a contractor would class minor injuries as near misses. All injuries are accidents.
Some Clients tended to expand the definition of near miss to also include events with the potential to cause damage to the environment, damage to property or other material loss. Sometimes applying these more operational extras to construction sites was not easy.
