Accident report form. A printable accident, incident and near miss report form — what happened, who was involved, what was done, and whether it needs reporting under RIDDOR.

The first job of an accident form is to capture what happened while somebody still remembers it. That is why the narrative is a writing area in the reporter's own words rather than a set of categories — categories are for analysing accidents later, and they lose exactly the detail an investigation needs.

Near misses are on the same form on purpose. A site that reports only injuries is a site that learns only from the ones where somebody was unlucky, and near misses are the same events with better outcomes. A separate near miss form almost always means near misses stop being reported.

The RIDDOR block asks who decided and when, rather than telling you what is reportable. What must be reported, by whom and in what time differs by the kind of event and has changed; printing a deadline on a free form is how somebody reports late because of us. The form prompts the question and names the person who answered it.

Root cause is separated from immediate cause because the immediate cause is almost never the useful one. 'Operative slipped' is where most investigations stop; why there was standing water, why nobody reported it, and why the same thing happened in March is where the next accident gets prevented.