Health and safety reporting procedures*
Talk to your workers before developing or reviewing a reporting procedure, because they witness most of the health and safety issues in your workplace and can help make sure the procedure suits your business.
What to report
- injuries, illnesses and fatalities
- near misses
- damaged or faulty equipment
- housekeeping issues
- health and safety hazards
- suggestions and improvements
Serious and life-threatening hazards must be reported immediately. Call SafeWork NSW immediately on 13 10 50 if there is a:
- death
- serious injury or illness
- potentially dangerous incident
Who to report to
Workers should report health and safety issues to their:
- supervisor
- manager, or
- health and safety representative or health and safety committee
How to report
Workers can raise health and safety issues by:
- talking to a manager or supervisor
- completing a hazard/incident report form
- raising it at a staff meeting
A register should be kept for all issues and incidents.
Who actions reports
Appoint someone to action hazard and incident reports. This could be a supervisor, manager or health and safety representative.
Encourage reporting*
- Train all your workers in the reporting procedure.
- Train your workers to recognise hazards.
- Encourage them to speak up quickly about safety issues.
- Praise them for reporting safety issues, including near misses.
- Encourage regular discussions about opportunities to improve health and safety.
- Consider appointing a health and safety representative or forming a health and safety committee.
Act upon reports
- Let workers know you have received their report, keep them updated on progress, and advise them of the outcome.
- Address the issue immediately, if possible, and track progress until it is resolved.
- Investigate each report to find why it happened - eg if there are any new hazards, if control measures are not working, or if your workers are not following procedures correctly.
- Use effective control measures to manage the risk.
- Review your reports regularly to identify trends.
*Some questions may not apply if you are a sole trader, unless you engage with sub-contractors, labour-hire workers, volunteers, work experience, etc.