A near miss is an event that could have caused harm and did not. It is the cheapest safety information a business will ever receive, because it arrives without an injury, a claim or an investigation, and it points at exactly the control that was missing. Most small firms record none, which means the only data they have about their own risks comes from the times somebody was actually hurt.
Near miss examples: what counts, and what to write down
A scaffold board that moved, a load that swung, a cable that was live when it should not have been, a vehicle that came closer than it should. Record the date and time, the location, what happened, who was involved, what was done immediately and what has changed since. The last field is the one that matters.
What information should be documented in an incident log: the same fields, one file
What information should be documented in an incident is the same list, plus the injury and the people notified. Keeping near misses in the same file as incidents is what lets a pattern be seen, and the pattern is the whole reason for collecting them.
A field level risk assessment is not the written assessment
A field level risk assessment, or flha, is the short check a crew makes at the task before starting: what has changed since the plan, what is around us now. It complements the written assessment and does not replace it, and recording it takes a minute. Where it disagrees with the plan, the work stops and the plan changes.
Questions people ask about near miss
Do near misses have to be reported to a regulator?
Specified dangerous occurrences are reportable and the categories are defined; the everyday near miss is an internal record. Check the reportable list against the event rather than assuming either way.
How do you get people to report them?
By never punishing a report, by acting on some of them visibly, and by making it take under a minute. All three are required: a firm that asks for reports and changes nothing gets none within a month.
What is the difference between an FLHA and a risk assessment?
Scope and timing. The assessment is written when the work is planned and covers the job; the field level check is made at the task, on the day, and covers what has changed. A risk assessment form example shows the first; the second is usually a card.