Near Miss Reporting: What Counts and What to Do

A scaffold board slips off the second lift and lands a metre from the labourer mixing mortar below. Nobody's hurt. The board goes back up, someone makes a joke about it, and the job carries on. Two weeks later the same thing happens on the next elevation, and this time somebody is standing in the wrong place. That first board was a near miss, and nobody wrote it down.

So what counts as a near miss? HSE defines a near miss as an event that, while not causing harm, has the potential to cause injury or ill health. In plain terms, it's the close call: nothing happened this time, but it easily could have. Near miss reporting means writing these events down, looking at why they happened and fixing the cause before the next one hurts someone. Most near misses aren't reportable under RIDDOR, but some are, because they count as dangerous occurrences. This guide covers both, with examples from construction, security and facilities management.

What is a near miss?

HSE's guidance on investigating accidents and incidents, HSG245, sorts unplanned events into a few types. It's worth knowing them, because the words get used loosely on site.

• Accident: an event that results in injury or ill health.
• Near miss: an event that, while not causing harm, has the potential to cause injury or ill health. HSG245 counts dangerous occurrences as a type of near miss.
• Undesired circumstance: a set of conditions with the potential to cause injury or ill health, even though no event has happened yet. A missing edge protection section is an undesired circumstance. Somebody stepping towards that gap and catching themselves is a near miss.
• Dangerous occurrence: one of the specific events listed in Schedule 2 of RIDDOR, which must be reported to the enforcing authority even when nobody is hurt.

So a near miss needs two things: something actually happened, and it could reasonably have caused harm. A dropped tool that lands in an exclusion zone with nobody in it is a near miss. A tool left on a scaffold platform without toe boards is an undesired circumstance. Both are worth recording, but the distinction helps when you're sorting reports later.

It's also worth being clear on the difference between a hazard and a risk. The hazard is the thing that can cause harm, such as the unsecured board. The near miss is the moment that hazard nearly turned into an injury. If you want a refresher on spotting hazards in the first place, our guide on what a hazard is covers the basics.

Near miss examples from UK sites

Near misses look different depending on the work. Here are the kinds of events that should end up on a report form rather than in the canteen as a funny story.

Construction

• An excavator slews and the counterweight passes within arm's reach of a banksman who'd stepped into the swing radius.
• A bag of fixings falls from a loading bay gate that was left open, landing on the walkway below.
• An electrician isolates a board, but a circuit fed from another board is still live when tested before work. The test caught it, but the isolation plan was wrong.
• A trench wall slumps overnight. Nobody was in it, but the gang were due in at 7:30.

Security

• A door supervisor is nearly pinned against a barrier when a queue surges at opening time.
• A mobile patrol officer walking a yard at night is nearly struck by a reversing HGV with no banksman.
• A steward trips on an unsecured cable ramp at an event exit during ingress, before the crowd arrives.
• A key holding response officer finds an intruder still on site, where the call-out plan assumed the building was empty.

Facilities management

• A ceiling tile drops into a corridor during a quiet period after a roof leak nobody reported.
• A cleaner's foot goes from under them on a freshly mopped floor, but they grab the handrail and don't fall.
• A lift engineer finds the landing door interlock can be opened with the car away from the floor.

Each one could have been a fracture or worse, and each tells you something about how the work is planned.

Is a near miss reportable under RIDDOR?

Usually not. There's no general legal duty to report near misses to HSE. RIDDOR, the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013, covers deaths, specified injuries, over-seven-day injuries, certain diseases and dangerous occurrences.

The catch is that last category. Some near misses are dangerous occurrences, and those must be reported even though nobody was hurt. HSE describes them as incidents with a high potential to cause death or serious injury. Examples from Schedule 2 that come up on construction and FM sites include:

• the collapse, overturning or failure of any load-bearing part of lifting equipment (not lifting accessories such as chains and slings), whatever work it was doing at the time
• the complete or partial collapse of a substantial part of any scaffold more than 5 metres high, measured from the scaffold's base
• the failure of any supporting part of a slung or suspended scaffold that causes a working platform to fall
• plant or equipment coming into contact with an uninsulated overhead line above 200 volts, or getting close enough to cause a discharge
• a fire or explosion caused by an electrical short circuit or overload, where the plant is stopped for more than 24 hours or there was a significant risk of death
• the unintentional collapse of a structure involving more than 5 tonnes of material, or of any floor or wall, during construction, demolition, refurbishment or maintenance work
• the unintentional collapse of any falsework

HSE says that deciding whether something is a dangerous occurrence doesn't need complex analysis. It's a reasonable judgement about whether the incident caused a real risk of harm. Where it's reportable, the responsible person must notify the enforcing authority without delay, and the report must be received within 10 days. You must also keep a record of it for at least three years (RIDDOR regulation 12).

So a mobile crane touching an overhead line is a near miss and a dangerous occurrence. A pallet sliding off the forks in the yard is a near miss, but in most cases not a dangerous occurrence. If in doubt, check the schedule. Our RIDDOR reporting guide walks through each category, the deadlines and who counts as the responsible person.

Why near miss reporting matters, even when the law doesn't demand it

The law doesn't ask you to send near misses to HSE, but it does expect you to know what's going on in your own work. Regulation 5 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires employers to have arrangements for the planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of their preventive and protective measures. Regulation 3 says a risk assessment must be reviewed if there's reason to suspect it's no longer valid. A near miss is often exactly that reason.

There's a duty on workers too. Regulation 14 requires employees to tell their employer about any work situation they'd reasonably consider a serious and immediate danger, and about any shortcoming in the employer's protection arrangements. A near miss report is the practical way that happens.

HSG245 also points out that near misses are easier to investigate than accidents. There's no injured person and no threat of prosecution hanging over the conversation, so people talk more openly. And it's often pure luck whether a situation ends as a near miss or an accident, so the lesson is worth the same.

How to report a near miss: a simple process

You don't need specialist software to run a working near miss system. You need something people will actually use and a manager who acts on what comes in.

1. Make the area safe first. Stop the job if needed, barrier off the area and make sure nobody's exposed to the same hazard while you sort it out.
2. Record it while it's fresh. Date, time, location, what happened, who was involved or nearby, the task being done and what could have happened. Photos help. Keep the form short or it won't get filled in.
3. Grade the potential, not the outcome. A dropped hammer from 20 metres is serious even if it landed on grass. Judge it on what could realistically have happened.
4. Check whether it's a dangerous occurrence. If it's on the RIDDOR Schedule 2 list, it needs reporting to the enforcing authority within the deadline.
5. Find the cause, not the culprit. Ask why the board slipped, why the gate was open, why the isolation plan missed a circuit. Keep asking why until you reach something you can change, such as the method, the equipment, the supervision or the training.
6. Fix it and update the paperwork. Change the method, the RAMS, the permit or the briefing. If the risk assessment didn't cover it, it needs reviewing.
7. Tell people what changed. Feed it back at the next toolbox talk or briefing. If workers never hear what happened to their reports, they'll stop making them.

What a good near miss report looks like

Take the scaffold board. A weak report says: "Board fell from scaffold, no injury." A useful one says: "At 10:40, a scaffold board fell from the second lift on the north elevation and landed about 1 metre from a labourer mixing mortar at ground level. The board had been left loose after an adaption the day before. No exclusion zone was in place below. Potential: serious head injury." That second version tells you the cause (loose board after an adaption), the missing control (no exclusion zone) and who needs to act (the scaffold contractor and the site manager).

Building a reporting culture that works

The biggest barrier to near miss reporting isn't paperwork. It's people worrying about getting themselves or a mate into trouble. A few things help.

• Keep it blame-free where you can. Most near misses come from a plan that didn't match the job, not from recklessness. Say that out loud.
• Make it quick. A QR code on the welfare cabin door, a short paper form or a word with the supervisor. The best method is the one people will use.
• Act visibly. When a report leads to a change, say so at the next briefing.
• Look for patterns. One slip on a mopped floor is a report. Six in a month on the same corridor means the cleaning schedule needs a rethink.
• Include subcontractors and agency staff. They're often closest to the risk and least likely to speak up.

Point-of-work checks help too. A POWRA gives the gang a moment to spot conditions that have changed since the RAMS was written, which is often where near misses start.

Turning near misses into better RAMS

Every near miss is a free lesson about your method. The scaffold board example should lead to changes in the scaffold contractor's method statement (checking boards after every adaption) and the principal contractor's site rules (exclusion zones under active scaffold). The live-circuit example points at the isolation procedure and possibly the permit to work system.

When you review a RAMS after a near miss, ask:

• Did the RAMS identify this hazard at all?
• Were the controls realistic for the way the job was actually done?
• Did the people doing the work know what the RAMS said?
• Has anything changed on site since the RAMS was approved, such as the sequence, the plant or the people?

If the answer to any of those is no, the document needs editing and re-briefing, not just a signature. Our guide on safe systems of work covers how the method, the people and the controls fit together.

How swiftRMS helps

swiftRMS drafts RAMS for construction, security and facilities management work. When a near miss shows a gap in your method, you can describe the task and the site conditions and get a revised, legislation-referenced draft to work from, rather than starting from a blank template. It cites the relevant legislation for the task, such as the Work at Height Regulations 2005 for scaffold work or the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 for isolations.

The draft is a starting point. A competent person still needs to review it, edit it for the site and approve it before anyone works to it, as the Management Regulations expect. What swiftRMS saves is the time spent rewriting the same sections from scratch. You can see sample outputs on our examples page, or read more about how our risk assessment software works for facilities management teams.

If a near miss has left you with a RAMS to rewrite, try a free RAMS preview with no signup. If it suits your team, you can start a 14-day free trial with no card needed.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the HSE definition of a near miss?

HSE's guidance HSG245 defines a near miss as an event that, while not causing harm, has the potential to cause injury or ill health. HSG245 also treats dangerous occurrences as a type of near miss. It separates near misses from undesired circumstances, which are conditions with the potential to cause harm where no event has yet happened.

Do I have to report near misses to HSE?

Not as a general rule. RIDDOR doesn't require you to report near misses. But some near misses are dangerous occurrences listed in Schedule 2 of RIDDOR, such as the collapse of a scaffold over 5 metres high or plant touching an overhead power line. Those must be reported to the enforcing authority, and the report must be received within 10 days.

What's the difference between a near miss and a dangerous occurrence?

A near miss is any event that could have caused harm but didn't. A dangerous occurrence is a specific type of near miss listed in RIDDOR Schedule 2 because of its high potential to cause death or serious injury. Every dangerous occurrence is a near miss, but most near misses aren't dangerous occurrences.

What are common near miss examples in construction?

Typical ones include falling materials from scaffolds or loading bays, plant slewing close to workers, vehicles reversing without a banksman, trench collapses when nobody is inside, and live circuits found during a pre-work test. Slips and trips where the person catches themselves also count.

Who should report a near miss?

Anyone who sees one. Under regulation 14 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, employees must tell their employer about serious dangers and shortcomings in protection arrangements. In practice, the person who saw the event records it, a supervisor or manager investigates, and if it's a dangerous occurrence the responsible person under RIDDOR reports it.

How long should near miss records be kept?

The law sets a minimum only for RIDDOR records. Records of reportable incidents, including dangerous occurrences, must be kept for at least three years. For other near misses, there's no fixed legal period, but keeping them for several years lets you spot trends and shows you've acted on what you found.

Official Resources

• HSE: Investigating accidents and incidents (HSG245)
• HSE: RIDDOR dangerous occurrences
• HSE: When do I need to report an incident?
• legislation.gov.uk: The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013
• legislation.gov.uk: The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999