An incident report is the first written account of an event at work that caused, or could have caused, injury, ill health or damage. The template below covers the fields most organisations need. Most of the difference between a useful report and a thin one sits in how those fields get answered, so the examples further down matter more than the boxes.
Download the incident report template (Word, two pages). No email required.
What is an incident report?
An incident report records what happened, who was involved and what was done, in enough detail for someone who wasn’t there to act on it. It is usually started by the person involved or a witness, reviewed by a supervisor, and it is where any investigation begins.
It is not the same as a regulatory report. In the United States, OSHA’s Form 301 records the details of each recordable work-related injury or illness, and in the form’s instructions OSHA writes: “Within 7 calendar days after you receive information that a recordable work-related injury or illness has occurred, you must fill out this form or an equivalent.” Most internal incident reports cover more than that, including near misses, damage and releases where nobody was hurt.
What should an incident report include?
Enough for someone who wasn’t there to understand what happened and decide what to do next. These are the sections in the template, and the reason for each.
| Section | Fields | Why it’s there |
|---|---|---|
| The event | Date and time, exact location, type (injury, ill health, damage, release, near miss) | So the report can be found, sorted and compared |
| The account | What happened, in order, in the words of the person who was there, and what they were doing just before | Every later step depends on it |
| People and equipment | Who was involved, who else was exposed, witnesses, and the equipment, vehicle or substance involved | Who to talk to and what to inspect |
| What was done | Actions taken straight away, and actions asked for but not yet done | Keeps facts apart from intentions |
| What isn’t known | Anything the reporter couldn’t see or confirm | Stops a guess turning into a fact |
| Who wrote it | Who gave the account, who helped write it, who checked it | Shows whether the record is first-hand |
| Follow-up | Owner, due date, and the date the reporter was told the outcome | Closes the loop with the person who reported |
Two of those rows are often missing from standard templates: what isn’t known, and who wrote it. Both cost nothing to add, and with them a reviewer can judge how far to rely on the rest of the page.
Incident report examples: thin and useful
Three events, each written twice. The thin versions are typical of a report written at the end of a shift. The useful versions take about a minute longer to give.
A hand injury
| Thin | Useful |
|---|---|
| “Cut hand on sheet metal. First aid given.” | “Cut about 3 cm long on my left palm at about 14:15, lifting an offcut out of the shear bin at cell 4. The edge was still burred. I had cut-resistant gloves on but the left one was split across the palm. First aid at the station, steri-strips, back to work. I’ve left the glove by the first aid box so it can be checked. I don’t know how long it had been split.” |
A forklift and racking
| Thin | Useful |
|---|---|
| “Forklift hit racking. Damage only.” | “Reversing out of aisle 12 at about 06:50, I clipped the end upright with the counterweight. It’s bent about 2 cm at knee height, and there’s a pallet of bagged product on the second beam above it. Nobody was in the aisle. I’ve coned off the bay and told the shift lead. Nobody has inspected the racking yet. The mirror on that corner is cracked and has been for a while.” |
A chemical splash
| Thin | Useful |
|---|---|
| “Chemical splash, eyes washed, no injury.” | “Topping up the parts washer at about 11:00, solvent splashed off the funnel onto my face shield and left cheek. None went in my eyes. I used the eyewash for five minutes anyway. The funnel is too short for the filler neck so it sits at an angle. I don’t know the name of the solvent, it’s the blue drum by the washer. I haven’t told anyone except you yet.” |
Each useful version includes a fact missing from the thin one: the split glove, the cracked mirror, the short funnel. From those details you can work out what would stop a repeat, and none of them fits a dropdown.
How do you write an incident report?
Seven steps for whoever is writing it.
- Make the area safe first. Writing the report must never delay emergency or safety procedures.
- Write it as soon as you can. Canada’s Centre for Occupational Health and Safety advises that witnesses “should be kept apart and interviewed as soon as possible after the incident.” The same goes for the first account: it is easier to give while the details are fresh and before everyone has talked it over.
- Describe what you saw, heard and did. Leave causes and blame to the investigation.
- Put it in order. What you were doing, what happened, what you did next.
- Say what you don’t know. An honest gap is more useful than a guess.
- Keep what was done apart from what was asked for. “I coned it off” and “the racking needs inspecting” are different statements.
- Read it back before it’s filed. If someone else wrote it for you, check that it matches what you meant.
Why do incident reports arrive thin?
Usually because of when and how they get written.
Categories come before the account. On most forms the reporter picks a type, a severity and a body part before describing anything. Detail that doesn’t fit a category tends to get left out.
They get written at the end of the shift. By then the reporter wants to go home, and the account becomes a summary.
Someone else writes them. When a worker can’t or won’t use the system, a supervisor writes up what they were told. The record is second-hand from the start.
Language and literacy. A worker who speaks well may not write well, in any language. We covered that in safety training in a language workers understand.
There is more on where detail drops out in where safety reports lose the detail that mattered.
How do you check the quality of your incident reports?
Pull twenty reports from last quarter and ask five questions of each.
- Could someone who wasn’t there tell where it happened and what happened?
- Is the reporter’s own account in there, or only somebody’s summary of it?
- Are actions taken kept apart from actions requested?
- Can you see what is still unknown?
- Is there a link to what happened next?
If fewer than half pass the first two questions, the problem is in how the account is given, and adding fields to the template won’t solve it.
Can a worker give the account without filling in the form?
Yes, and the fields in the template still get completed.
With Tandm, the worker explains what happened by speaking or typing, in their own language, at the job. Tandm asks for the details the report needs and doesn’t have yet, such as where exactly, who else was there and what was done, then reads the account back. Nothing is recorded in the worker’s name until they confirm it. The confirmed record goes into the safety system you already run, in the structure that system expects.
Book a demo and bring one of your own incident reports. Twenty minutes.
About the template
The Word file has the seven sections above on two pages, with a line of guidance under each field. It has no risk matrix and no severity scoring, because most organisations already have one and a generic version would conflict with it. Use it as it is, or copy the sections into your own form.