A near miss is an unplanned event at work that could have caused injury, ill health or damage, and didn’t. Nobody needs treatment and nothing needs repairing, which is why a near miss is cheap to learn from and easy to lose.
Below: the standard definitions, twelve examples from industrial sites, and what a near-miss report needs to contain for the person who reads it next to do something with it.
What is a near miss?
A near miss is an unplanned event that could have caused injury, ill health or damage, and didn’t. The National Safety Council defines it as “an unplanned event that doesn’t result in injury or death, but could have.” In its template near-miss reporting policy, OSHA describes it in terms of what it offers: “A near miss is an opportunity to improve health and safety in a workplace based on a condition or an incident with potential for more serious consequences.”
You will also hear close call and near hit for the same thing.
ISO 45001 has no separate category for near misses. Its definition of an incident is an “occurrence arising out of, or in the course of, work that could or does result in injury and ill health”, so an event that could have hurt someone sits inside the same definition as one that did.
What is the difference between a hazard, a near miss and an incident?
A hazard is a condition. A near miss is an event that could have caused harm and didn’t; an incident is one that did.
| Term | What has happened | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Hazard | Nothing yet. A condition or practice that could cause harm | Oil weeping from a fitting under a press |
| Near miss | An event that could have caused harm. Nobody hurt, nothing damaged | A fitter slips on the oil and catches the guard rail |
| Incident | An event that caused injury, ill health or damage | The fitter slips on the oil and breaks a wrist |
The difference matters for who can report it. Anyone walking past can report a hazard. A near miss can only be reported by the people who were there, and often only by the person it nearly happened to.
Some organisations record near misses as a class of incident, which is how ISO 45001 treats them. Others keep a separate register. Either works if everyone on site uses the words the same way.
Near miss examples from industrial sites
Twelve examples, each with what to record beyond the words “near miss”.
| What happened | What to record beyond “near miss” |
|---|---|
| A forklift reversed out of an aisle as a picker stepped into the walkway behind it. No contact | Which aisle and walkway, whether the reversing alarm and beacon were working, and how close they came |
| A spanner fell from a platform and landed in the walkway below | The height, whether toe boards were fitted, and whether anyone had been in the walkway a moment earlier |
| A conveyor restarted while a fitter was clearing a blockage, before he had reached in | Who restarted it, what isolation was in place, and how a restart was possible |
| A cable listed as isolated on the permit tested live before anyone touched it | Which permit, who signed the isolation, and what the test before touch found |
| A load swung during a crane lift and passed over a crew who hadn’t cleared the area | The lift plan, the exclusion zone, and who was inside it |
| A hydraulic hose burst beside an operator and the fluid missed him | The age of the hose, its last inspection, and whether a shield was fitted |
| A delivery driver walked into a live loading bay looking for the dock office | The signage, the route he was given at the gate, and whether the bay has an interlock |
| A gas monitor alarmed while a crew prepared a confined space entry, before anyone went in | The reading, the space, and what the crew did next |
| The wrong additive was connected to a tank fill line and caught at the final check | The labelling on both containers and which check caught it |
| Two vehicles met at a blind intersection on a haul road and stopped short | The intersection, the right-of-way rule, the visibility and the radio calls made |
| A worker slipped on spilled oil and caught the handrail | Where the oil came from and whether it had been reported before |
| A ladder slid on a wet floor while someone stood on the second rung, and he stepped off | Why the floor was wet, the ladder type, and whether it was footed or tied |
With a small change in timing or position, each of these would have been an injury report. The conditions that produced them are still in place, and those conditions are what the report is for.
What should a near miss report include?
A useful near-miss report lets someone who wasn’t there understand what happened, what could have happened and what has been done about it. Five things carry that.
- Where, exactly. “Bay 3, by the second roller door” can be found. “Warehouse” can’t.
- What happened, in order, in the reporter’s words. Their sequence, before anyone turns it into categories.
- What could realistically have happened. The credible worst outcome at that moment. The reader needs it to judge how fast to respond.
- What was done straight away, and what has only been asked for. “I put a cone over it” and “maintenance should look at it” are different facts.
- What the reporter doesn’t know. “I couldn’t see where the oil was coming from” is useful. A guessed source is worse than an admitted gap.
The same near miss, written twice:
| Thin | Useful |
|---|---|
| “Near miss in workshop. Hose burst. No injuries.” | “Hydraulic hose on the number 2 press burst at about 10:40 while the operator was loading a blank. Fluid sprayed past his left side and hit the guard. It didn’t touch him. I isolated the press and roped it off. The hose looks like the original fit and I don’t know when it was last inspected. Maintenance haven’t seen it yet.” |
The second version takes a minute longer to give. It saves the person reading it a walk to the workshop and a conversation with someone who has already gone home.
Why do near misses go unreported?
Mostly for practical reasons. Reporting takes time at the end of a shift. The categories on the form don’t fit what happened. Nothing came back after the last report. And some people expect to be blamed for being there.
We went through the causes in why near misses are underreported. Several of them sit in the reporting path, and those can be measured.
How do you know if near-miss reporting is working?
Not from the count on its own. A rising count can mean more people reporting, a change in what gets recorded or more near misses, and from the number alone you can’t tell which. Four questions get closer.
- Who started the report? The share of near-miss reports begun by the person who saw the event, against those written up later by a supervisor on their behalf.
- How quickly did someone acknowledge it? In its guide to leading indicators, OSHA lists the “Average time between worker report of a hazard or concern and management acknowledgement of the report” as an example measure.
- Could it be used first time? The share accepted without anyone going back to the reporter for a missing detail.
- Did the reporter hear what happened next? Most reporting procedures cover what happens to the report and rarely what happens to the person who made it. Ask a sample of last month’s reporters whether anyone told them.
All four can be answered from records you already hold, plus a short conversation with a handful of the people who reported.
Can a worker report a near miss without filling in a form?
Yes, and the record still arrives in the shape your system needs.
With Tandm, the worker describes 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, then reads the account back. Nothing is recorded in the worker’s name until they confirm it, and the confirmed record goes into the safety system you already run. A contractor without a login can report the same way through a QR code on site.
If people expect blame, they will stay quiet whatever channel you give them, and no reporting tool changes that on its own. Tandm reduces the effort of the first minute for the person who saw it happen.
Book a demo and report a near miss yourself, in whichever language you like. Twenty minutes.
Sources
- National Safety Council, Near Miss Reporting. nsc.org
- Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Template for Near Miss Reporting Policy, July 2021. osha.gov
- Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Using Leading Indicators to Improve Safety and Health Outcomes, OSHA 3970, June 2019. osha.gov
- ISO 45001:2018, Occupational health and safety management systems, clause 3.35, incident. iso.org