Near Misses and the Things Not Reported

Serious incidents are rare and preceded by many that were nearly serious. In lone working, almost none of those reach anyone.

When near misses and the things not reported also depends on reliable work records, the online resource can support time, attendance and workload review without being treated as the emergency response itself. Compare any workflow with HSE lone-working guidance and keep alarm ownership, escalation and dispatch responsibilities explicit.

Why they go unreported

Nobody saw it, which is the definition of lone working and means there is no second person to raise it.

It feels like part of the job: a client who shouted, a dog, a stairwell with no light.

Reporting costs time at the end of a shift that is already over.

The worker does not want the client or the site withdrawn, particularly in care, where the relationship matters to them.

And a report may read as an admission that they could not handle it, which is a professional-identity problem more than a policy one.

What to make reportable

Aggression and threats, including verbal.

Anything that made the worker uncomfortable enough to consider leaving.

Environmental hazards at a site or address.

Equipment that failed, including the device.

And withdrawals, which should be recorded as a successful use of the system rather than as a problem.

Making it possible

Thirty seconds, by voice or two taps, from the vehicle.

Attached to the address automatically, because that is the analytically useful part and the tedious part to type.

Anonymous where the culture requires it, as a transitional arrangement.

And an acknowledgement, without which the second report does not happen.

What to do with them

Map them to addresses and clients, because they cluster there far more than by worker.

A property generating repeated reports gets a flag: two workers, a different time, a phone call first, or removal from the round.

Feed them into the risk assessment, which is the mechanism that is supposed to exist and rarely does.

The flag that matters

An address flag has to reach the worker before they arrive, not sit in a database.

Visible in whatever they actually look at: the schedule, the job app, the run sheet.

And it needs a stated meaning — "two workers required" or "call ahead" — rather than a note that leaves the judgement to whoever reads it at the door.

The measure

Reports per hundred visits or shifts.

A rise when the programme starts working is good news, and needs saying in advance so nobody reads it as a deterioration.

Proportion resulting in a change to an address, a round or an arrangement.

And withdrawals recorded, which if zero means the permission to leave is not believed.

What to record

The address or site, automatically.

What happened, in the worker's words, briefly.

Whether they withdrew.

What would have made it safer.

Five fields. Anything longer will not be completed at the end of a shift, and a long form is the commonest reason a reporting system produces nothing.

Acting on the reports

Triage weekly, not quarterly. A report that produces a change three months later teaches that reporting is slow rather than useless, which is only marginally better.

Three outcomes: no action with a reason given, a change to the arrangement, or an escalation to the risk assessment.

All three go back to the person who reported, which is the step that determines whether there is a second report.

The address flag lifecycle

Added with a stated action and a date.

Reviewed at a fixed interval — six months is common — rather than left permanently.

Because circumstances change: the aggressive relative moved out, the dog died, the stairs were repaired.

A flag that is never reviewed becomes both an unfair record of a client and an instruction people stop believing, and both failures arrive together.

Patterns worth looking for

Clusters by address, which is the obvious one.

Clusters by time of day, which usually point at staffing or daylight.

Clusters by round, which point at scheduling pressure.

And clusters by worker, which are almost always about which round they cover rather than about them — check that before anything else.

When reports stop

A reporting rate that falls is not an improvement.

It usually means something changed in how reports were received: a slow response, a report used in a performance conversation, or a change that was promised and not made.

Ask, because the cause is specific and the workers know it.

Withdrawals as their own record

Counted separately from near misses, and reported upward as a positive figure.

Because a withdrawal is the system working exactly as designed, and treating it as an exception to be explained is how the permission quietly disappears.

Record what prompted it and what happened afterwards — whether the visit was rescheduled with two workers, or the client was contacted, or nothing was done.

That last case is the one to watch.