UNIVERSITY KUALA LUMPUR MFI (FWB 23102 Welding Safety Management)

Notification and Reporting of Occupational Accident and Diseases 1. The Need for Notification and Reporting Of Accidents and Diseases The primary purpose of reporting, assembling and analyzing occupational accident and disease data is to provide knowledge for use in the prevention of occupational injuries, fatalities and other forms of harm such as toxic exposures with long-term effects. More specific purposes for the compiling of accident statistics include the following:

To estimate the causes and magnitude of accident and disease problems; To identify and prioritize the need for preventive measures; To evaluate the effectiveness of preventive measures; To monitor risks, issue warnings and conduct awareness campaigns To provide feedback for those involved in prevention

The need for accident information pertains to the following three levels of function that make use of it:

At the workplace level At the level of the authority At the level of the authority responsible for payments of compensation

2.

Reporting Accident Information to Authorities Common to most legislation is the fact that reporting is linked with some sort of penalty of compensation for the consequences of accidents. For the purpose of supplying a sound foundation for the prevention of occupational accidents or diseases, it is necessary to secure accident information pertaining to all sectors and to all types of trades. A basis of comparison should be provided at the national level in order to allow prevention action to be prioritized and in order that knowledge of risks associated with tasks across deferent sectors may be turned to good account in preventive work. It is therefore recommended that the duty of compiling occupational accident information at the national level apply to all occupational accidents of a designated seriousness, no matter whether they concern employees of firms or the self-employed, persons working at temporary jobs of regular salary earns, or workers in the public or private sectors. While employers, generally speaking, have a duty to report accidents, it is a duty carried out with varying degrees of enthusiasm.

2.1

The Role of the Organization in Reporting and Compiling Accident Information In many countries it is a legal requirement that enterprises keep statistics of occupational accidents which result in injury, fatality or toxic exposure to a worker. The purpose of this is usually to call attention to risks that have actually led to these types of accidents, with safety
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UNIVERSITY KUALA LUMPUR MFI (FWB 23102 Welding Safety Management)

activities focusing chiefly on the particular accident and the study of the event itself. By systematically compiling accident information it is possible to obtain a broader view of those areas where specific risks are to be found, and to uncover the less obvious factors instrumental in the causation of the accident. 2.1.1 Laws Pertaining to Reporting Requirement There are presently two set of laws governing the requirement of reporting. (a) Reporting Requirement Under the Factories and Machinery Act 1967 (Act 139) Section 31 of Act 139 requires the occupier of any factory to report to the nearest Inspector by the quickest means available and subsequently report in writing in a prescribed form (appendix 1) any accident which: Is fatal; Cause badly injury to any person prevention him from doing his normal occupation for more than 4 days; Causes serious damage to property or machinery; and Any dangerous occurrence

Section 32 of Act 139 requires that every medical practitioner to report any diseases listed in the schedule (appendix 2) to the Chief Inspector and at the same time notify the occupier.

(b)

Reporting Requirement under the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994 (Act 514) Under section 32(1) of Act 514, the employer shall notify the nearest occupational safety and health office of any accident, dangerous occurrence or diseases which has or likely to occur at the place of work (type of accident to be reported in appendix 3) Under section 32(2) of Act 514 very registered medical practitioner shall report to the Director General any of the diseases listed in appendix 4.

The Occupational Safety and Health (Reporting of Accident. Dangerous (Draft) prescribes further details on the procedure of reporting and notification. Under this regulation reporting of accidents and diseases has been categorized into twotier system. The system of reporting adopted is as follows: Reporting must be immediate and by the quickest means if the accident is of the following category: Involving death Causes serious bodily injuries Preventing the victim from doing his normal occupation for more than three calendar days: and Involving any dangerous occurrences.
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UNIVERSITY KUALA LUMPUR MFI (FWB 23102 Welding Safety Management)

A written report must be submitted within seven days in the form prescribed in the regulation. Other accidents, which do not fall into any of the types described above; the employer shall record the particular of the accident in a log form prescribed in the regulation. Any occurrence of occupational disease or poisoning must be reported to the Director General in the prescribed form within seven days the disease or poisoning comes into the knowledge of the employer or the registered medical practitioner attending to the patient.

2.2

What information is to be Reported and Compiled? There are basic classes of information obtainable by means of accident reporting and recording. Information identifying where the accidents Information showing how the accidents occur Information relating to the nature and seriousness of the injuries describing

The items especially relevant to the task of preparing statistics relating to the accident are described more fully below. Accident identification number. Personal identification number and date. Nationality Enterprise. The work process The accident event The consequences of the accident.

For recording purposes, the examination of accident events is therefore divided into the following three information components. The activity associated with an accident is that which was being carried out by the victim at the time of the accident. The injury event is the deviant event, which led to the accident. The mode of injury is recorded by using a code for the manner in which the victim came into contact with the injury-causing factor and another code for the technology that caused the injury.

2.3

The Use of Accident Statistics Accident statistics form a valuable instrument in a wide range of contexts: mapping, monitoring and warning, prioritization of areas for prevention specific prevention measures, and information retrieval and research. One area may overlap with another, the principles of application vary.

UNIVERSITY KUALA LUMPUR MFI (FWB 23102 Welding Safety Management)

Mapping Mapping of occupational accident data involves the extraction of predetermined sorts of information from an accumulation of registered data and the analysis of the interrelationships among them. The following examples will illustrate the utility of mapping applications. Mapping of industrial sectors. Data relating to industrial sectors may be mapped by extracting an appropriate selection of reports contained in a data register and carrying out the detailed analysis. Mapping of injuries. If selection is based on a specific category injuries. The reports can be extracted and mapped to show examples of the trades in which these accidents occur, the occupational categories involved, the age groups affected, and the activities in which the accidents occurred and the kind of technology most often involved. Mapping of enterprises. An evaluation on the enterprise level of accident trends (and thus of the internal work environment of the enterprise) can be carried out by mapping the notified occupational accidents that have occurred over a given time period.

Monitoring and warning Monitoring is an ongoing surveillance process accompanied by warning of major risks, and particularly of changes in such risks.

Establishment of priorities Establishment of priorities is the selection of the most important risk areas or workenvironment problems for preventive action. Through the results of mapping surveys and monitoring and warning activities, a register of occupational accidents can be built which can contribute to this establishment of priorities, the elements of which might include the following: Risks involving serious consequences Risks which carry a high probability of injury to a large proportion of the exposure group Risks to which large groups of people are exposed.

Prevention Analyses and documentation, which are used for preventive purposes, are generally highly specific and concentrated in limited areas that are, however, treated in great depth. Preliminary mapping surveys identified the trades and work functions in which fatal accidents occurred. The number of occupational accidents in a single enterprise is often too small to yield workable statistics for preventive analysis. An analysis of the pattern of accidents may be able to be used to prevent repetition of specific injuries, but
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UNIVERSITY KUALA LUMPUR MFI (FWB 23102 Welding Safety Management)

can hardly be successful in preventing the occurrence of accidents which in one way or another differ from earlier instances. Unless the focus of investigation is quite a large enterprise, such analyses are therefore best performed on a group of enterprises of very similar nature or on a group of production processes of the same type. Information retrieval and research One of the most common uses of such information system as filing and library systems is the retrieval of information of a specific and well-defined nature for the purpose of safety research, for instance, in a study whose aim was to formulate regulation concerning work on roots, the doubt was raised whether particular risk was attached to such work.