Association of Colleges
Accidents
Accidents in Colleges
According to the HSE, the term “accident” includes any undesired circumstances which may or may not give rise to ill-health or injury, damage to property, plant, products or the environment, production losses or increased liabilities. Incident includes any undesired circumstances and 'near-misses' which could cause accidents.
Costs of Accidents
Health and Safety management should be seen, by a College, as a quality issue. Failing to manage H&S effectively is likely to lead to undesirable outcomes in three areas – financial, moral and legal.
Financial loss includes money lost, for example, as a result of repairs to property, machinery and equipment. More importantly, an accident resulting in injury to a person may lead to losses due to sickness costs, training costs, pension costs, legal costs and costs associated with the temporary or permanent replacement of those injured. There would also be the possible effects on funding for a College which did not safeguard the health, safety and welfare of learners.
Moral factors include, principally, our desire to avoid any human suffering. A College should not forget the negative effect on its reputation as a result of the publicity following a serious accident.
Civil and criminal action includes any possible fines - and compensation claims which may dwarf any fine imposed.
Most of these costs cannot be insured against. In fact, it has been demonstrated that uninsured costs such as equipment and property damage, loss of experience/expertise and legal costs, can vary between 8-36 times that of the insured cost.
It is clear, then, that in addition to the moral case it makes sound financial sense for Colleges to work towards reducing accidents to a minimum. HSE have published a useful ready reckoner for accident costs. A summary of together with a link to its on-line version is accessible by clicking below.
HSE accident cost ready reckoner
College managers should recognise the need to investigate the cause of an accident which has caused serious injury. However, it is wrong merely to consider the seriousness of an accident in relation to its outcome. For example, if a member of staff slips on some spilled liquid, the consequences may range from soiled clothing to fatal injury. The precise outcome of an accident cannot be readily predicted. The only effective way to reduce injuries is to investigate all accidents and take the necessary measures to eliminate their causes.
Not all accidents need to be investigated to the same extent or depth. The greatest effort should concentrate on significant events where there has been serious injury, ill-health or loss, as well as those which had the potential to cause serious injury or loss.
Reporting Accidents
Certain accidents and occurrences MUST be reported under The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regs: 1985 (RIDDOR). These Regulations can be difficult to interpret in a College context, where many College users are non-employees.
AoC has written some guidance on reporting College accidents -
Accident reporting under RIDDOR regulations.
Of course, there are additional requirements for reporting accidents to learners funded by LSC. Information on this is available on the Safelearner website.
Recording Accidents
AoC H&S Briefing 14/07 introduced version 2 of AIMS, a system for recording all College accidents and incidents. The background to AIMS is detailed at
Backgound to Accident and Incident Management System (AIMS) for FE Colleges
The AIMS v2 software is a Microsoft Access file, available for download at
aims_v2zip
In order to make it a manageable download it has been compressed into a zip file. Choose the option to save the file (aims_v2.zip) to your computer. Once saved it will need to be unzipped and the extracted file (AIMS2 Master File - Blank.mdb) saved or copied to your computer before use.
Please note that, because of the additional facilities included in AIMS v2, your computer must have Microsoft Access 2003 or later version.
The revised Basic User Guide contains information on how to produce graphical output for your reports.
It can be downloaded:
single-sided printing at
AIMS V.2 Basic User Guide for single-sided printing
and for double-sided printing
AIMS V.2 Basic User Guide for double-sided printing
Tip: the B.U.G. is formatted to be printed out, then folded to make an A5 booklet.
(The full user manual was written for the previous version of AIMS but expert users may find its contents useful. It can be downloaded at AIMS Version 1 manual )
Accident Statistics 2007 - 2008
A big thank you to those colleges that have sent in their returns for the 2006-7 academic year. Although the number of Colleges submitting data was again relatively small, the ability to make comparisons, for example with similar Colleges, was found by members to be valuable. If you missed out last year then here is the message again:
We all agree, I am sure, on the importance of benchmarking. HSE has described the advantages in their document “Health & Safety Benchmarking (Improving Together)”.
One thing that has been missing, from the FE sector, is nationwide accident data. We have been hoping to have such data available for benchmarking purposes, to study trends over time, to identify accident “hotspots” etc.
AIMS has been in use for over a year now and users will be able to produce a wide range of data for analysis. However, many Colleges are still using other systems and we wish to draw in as much information as possible from all Colleges, not just AIMS users.
The information I require from each College, for the Aug 2007 - July 2008 period, is:
College Name (This will NOT be published to preserve confidentiality)
College Type (General FE, Sixth Form, Specialist (state type, eg land-based))
For Staff:
Number of Staff (Full Time Equivalent)
Number of Incidents/Accidents
Number of RIDDOR Reportables
For Learners:
Number of Learners (Full Time Equivalent)
Number of Incidents/Accidents
Number of RIDDOR Reportables
Thanks for your co-operation.
Action needed now:
Please e-mail your College's data to Stephen Green
Summary of data returned, to date, for 2007-8 is available here:
Data from past years' returns are on Excel files, here
Accident stats 2006-7
Accident stats 2005-6
Accident stats 2004-5