Delta-Simons is a multidisciplinary environmental, health and safety consultancy providing trusted training services to clients both nationally and globally. Our Environmental Health and Safety team supported our global technology retailer Client with accident investigation across corporate and retail sites for 7 years, across the UK. Accident, incident and near-miss reporting is a crucial part of any effective EHS programme to identify trends, establish root causes and prevent recurrence. Our team have supported our client with various incident types ranging from minor cuts and falls, to serious injuries which required a full root cause investigation and RIDDOR (Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013) submission to the HSE.
Contract Challenges
Our global Client operates 39 Retail sites and 20 Corporate sites across the UK, employing over 5000 employees. As a large retailer, our client welcomes thousands of customers every year to their stores. As such, it is important to ensure that the response to any incidents affecting employees or customers is investigated consistently and thoroughly.
Determining the factors that have caused an accident is crucial to:
- Prevent similar accidents in the future;
- Ensure a safe working environment;
- Protect the Client’s reputation.
All accident investigation fundamentally requires a methodical, structured approach to ensure all relevant information is gathered, collated and analysed. Often a completely independent investigation is required and this is where we assist our Clients.
Our Solution
Our specialist team helped our Client in investigating all incidents, ranging in:
- Severity – from minor to serious, reporting as RIDDOR to the HSE where required;
- Type – from slips, trips and falls, cuts, battery events, and evacuations, to customer illnesses, walking into glass, injuries occurring from security-related incidents, personal medical and muscular-skeletal injuries;
- Location – Front of house, back of house, loading bays and offices;
- Person impacted – customer, visitor, employee or vendor.
Our team investigated the root cause of the incident, to inform recommendations for reducing the risk of similar incidents reoccurring. These included:
- Ensuring that the team are aware of the correct battery thermal event response;
- Aligning with cleaning vendors on the importance of wet floor signage;
- Ensuring equipment is Portable Appliance Testing (PAT) tested;
- Avoiding the use of devices in stairwells;
- Making sure that Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) is worn when appropriate;
- Ensuring that first aiders are available to respond to ill or injured individuals.
The team worked with the stores and office employees to align on the importance of submitting an incident report for all injuries and illnesses, regardless of the severity. We also shared advice with our Client’s employees to ensure that sufficient detail was included in the initial incident report.
