Accident prevention refers to the plans, preparations, and actions taken to avoid accidents or stop them from taking place.
Accident prevention includes all measures taken in an effort to save lives, escape from injury, lessen the degrees of injury, avoid damage to property, reduce treatment and compensation costs, and prevent the loss of productive time and morale.
Accident Prevention Plan
Accident prevention plans are geared towards protecting you and your employees from hazards at work. An accident prevention plan involves appropriate preparations and necessary actions taken to minimise, if not completely prevent, accidents.
When an accident prevention plan is properly implemented, in the event that of an accident, the degree of injuries, damages, and losses will be significantly lessened.
Reasons for Accident Prevention
- Protect life and health
The most obvious reason for accident prevention is to protect the life and health of everyone against any loss causing events in the workplace. This is a moral obligation for employers to ensure the health and well-being of employees. Failing to take precautions to prevent accidents and occupational injuries or illnesses makes management morally responsible for those accidents. If a potential problem or threat exists, and no action steps are taken to prevent an accident, the outcome will fall on management.
- Prevent downtime
The second reason for preventing accidents is because accidents and occupational illnesses limit efficiency and productivity because of downtime. This is an indirect cost from an accident, but a very costly one. Replacement labour can cost your company time and resources, along with possible sick pay, repairing damaged equipment, or even fines.
- Protect your reputation
The third reason for preventing accidents is because accidents and occupational illnesses can produce far-reaching social harm to your reputation. Word gets around when accidents happen and it always paints a negative picture of a company in the public eye. Sending unprepared employees to a job will hurt your reputation because you will be sending them the wrong message about your company. With the right safety staff, you can send a message that says “We take safety and the lives our employees seriously! We do our best in everything.”
- Boosts morale of employees
When your employees feel safe in the workplace, they tend to have a more positive attitude at work. Providing the security for your employees will make them feel that they are being taken care of well.
- Legal Reasons
The fourth reason for preventing accidents is because state and federal legislation mandates management responsibility to provide a safe workplace, so it is a legal requirement. This means that you wouldn’t have to spend a lot on compensation costs, fines for violation of the law around workplace safety, and costs of property damage.
4 E’s of Accident Prevention
- Engineering Measures
Engineering measures eliminate the technical causes of accidents such as defects in plant, equipment, tools and general environment. These measures include enclosure, substitution, good housekeeping and maintenance, Isolation etc.
- Educational Measures
These take the defects out of the people through the training, induction, instructions, policies, procedures, seminars, legislation etc.
- Enforcement Measures
These ensure that people comply with and apply all that they have been taught and instructed to do through effective supervision, inspections, audits and reports. Disciplinary actions to deal with safety violations should be implemented where necessary.
- Encouragement Measures
These measures are by recognitions, incentives, awards and promotion. Awards are usually based on the number of hours worked without time lost to an accident, good housekeeping, safety suggestions etc.
Primelift Safety Resources Limited provides Accident Investigation and Reporting Training to enhance the safety of personnel in the workplace.
Contact us: www.primeliftsafetyng.com. Call us on +234 9115687051 or email us at training@primeliftsafetyng.com for more information.
