Learning from incidents

Hear from Chartered Member Justice Nkrumah about how to avoid repeat safety and health incidents in the workplace.

A repeat accident is a later event that happens in the same or similar circumstances as a previous event. This is often due to the same root causes or contributing factors (Safety Science, 2019).

Many organisations put effort into managing safety to prevent accidents, incidents and disasters.

Despite these efforts, incidents keep recurring, resulting in injuries and damage to the environment.

Common reasons for repeat incidents include:

• inadequate analysis of past incidents
• failure to put in place appropriate controls
• complacency.

Organisations can learn by detecting events and conducting quality analysis or investigations. They then need to reflect and learn lessons before putting these lessons into practice.

By learning from incidents, accidents and disasters, organisations can further improve their safety levels and prevent future incidents.

Open to all, including non-members.