As a school it is essential that you keep a record of injuries and accidents to pupils. This usually takes the form of an accident book where details of accidents to pupils leading to injury can be recorded. Alternatively, a school can use software specifically designed to manage accident and incident reporting.
Using software to do the job of a physical accident book has a number of advantages, we specifically look at the benefits of the 5D Incident and Accident Reporting platform:
Integration
5D Incident and Accident Reporting integrates with SIMS and other school management platforms making it easy to pull up student details.
Accessibility
A paper Accident Book is typically kept in the school reception for people to locate and access. With 5D there is no additional cost per user so all staff members can easily access the software through any internet browser.
Categorising Accidents, Incidents and Near Misses
An incident may fall in one of several categories -
A RIDDOR reportable accident - something reportable to the HSE as defined in RIDDOR (Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013)
An Accident - a less serious accident, not reportable to RIDDOR but needs recording and reviewing as an accident.
An Incident - incidents such as a nose bleed or stomach upset which aren't necessarily an accident but should still be recorded and communicated to parents.
Near Misses - an incident with no resulting injuries but it had the potential to cause injury.
5D can record and categorise different incidents/accidents and issue a parental notification slip/report with an ID reference to keep everyone in the loop.
Off Site Reporting
Sometimes an accident or incident might happen off school premises e.g. a school trip or sports match. In this scenario a mobile app linking to the 5D Incident and Accident Reporting software makes it easy to record important details as soon as practicable when it’s still fresh in people’s minds.
Upload Supporting Information
As a database, 5D Accident & Incident Reporting software can hold detailed information on an accident. This might be a body map indicating where the injury is sited, where the accident happened, witness contact details etc. You can also attach useful documentation for reference e.g. a photograph of the injury, a copy of the RIDDOR report or a follow up risk assessment.
Reporting
It is likely that you will need to refer to an accident record at a later date. The information recorded may be required to by the HSE if they ask to see it. One of the main purposes of recording an accident is to help to prevent accidents from happening in the future. Therefore, you and your school need to reflect on past accidents in order to determine whether anything could have been done to avoid it. A software solution lets users easily access the information they need to review e.g. being able to easily collate similar accidents will be useful to identify any regular occurrences.
Each incident or accident will be given a unique reference ID for easy identification. Additionally the software reporting function lets users bring up reports around multiple parameters including date range, individual students and incident type.
Tags: accident reporting