Health & Safety

Definition of an Incident

An unplanned event (including dangerous occurrences and systems failures) resulting in, or having a potential for injury, ill health, damage or other loss.
Note: This incident report is only relevant if it is associated to an individual whereas if an individual cannot be associated with an incident, then the Hazard Reporting System should be used.

Definition of a Hazard

A source or a situation (including dangerous occurrences and systems failures) with a potential for harm in terms of human injury or ill health, damage to property, damage to the environment, or a combination of these.
Note: This hazard report is only relevant if it is NOT associated to an individual whereas when a situation results in an injury/illness/disease or can be associated with an individual(s), the Incident Reporting System should be used.

Risk matrix

The risk matrix uses Likelihood and Consequense to rate the risk. This risk rating assists the incident approver to determine and prioritise the corrective actions

• Risk Matrix and Definitions

The incident reporting risk matrix page offers further details.

This advice presumes you are a supervisor or manager, and the incident involves staff who report directly to you, and occurs in a workplace location that you are responsible for. If not all these conditions are true, then another supervisor/manager may need to complete some of these actions.

For supervisors: I have received an email notification from ERMS - what should I do?

• Once you receive an email notification about the incident from ERMS, log in to ERMS and enter information about your immediate response, risk rating, action plan and the results of any incident investigation.
• If there is an outstanding action plan or tasks at the time that you acknowledge the incident, you will need to return to ERMS again after the actions/tasks are completed, to confirm or adjust the information you entered previously.
• If you assesses the risk rating of an incident, near miss, illness or injury to be high or severe (refer: Incident reporting risk matrix), you must ensure that an ICAM incident investigation is carried out (see list of ICAM trained personnel). Incidents assessed with a risk rating of medium, will require a basic or an ICAM incident investigation.
Respond to an incident

Incident investigation

An incident with a risk rating of Medium requires the responsible person to complete a basic investigation. It may require further invesitgation with an incident investigation team.

An incident with a risk rating of High to Extreme requires an incident investigation team, including one ICAM trained member. (refer: Incident reporting risk matrix).

Instructions on completing incident investigations are available from Health & Safety: Incident, injury, hazard reporting and investigation requirements.

Enter incident investigation results into ERMS. If you do not have access to ERMS you can use the Incident Investigation form which can then be transfered to ERMS.

Corrective action plan

All hazards and incidents are required to have an action plan. The action plan is used to assess the hazard or incident. Based on this assessment control measures are introduced to mitigate or minimise:

• the hazard from becoming an incident; or
• the incident reoccurring.

The Forms and Guidance Materials page lists all related forms, guidance, processes and requirements.

General

• I am a staff member, how do I report an issue on ERMS?
  Go to - https://unimelb.service-now.com/it (UoM login required)
  1. Click on Fix Something (contact support to report a problem) or
  2. Click on Webpage or Application
  3. Select Applications from the Issue Type drop down table
  4. Select tick box Enterprise Risk Management System
  5. Enter information as required
• I am a student, where can go for more information or to report an systems issue?
  • For more information please visit Stop 1 or call 13Melb. Alternatively, you can contact the Health and Safety Business Partner in your area.
  • If you are experiencing difficulty with the system, please log your issue with Stop 1 or call 13Melb.

If you do not have access to ServiceNow, please email the University Services Health & Safety team or call x98926 (internal number) for assistance.

Incident/Hazard Reporting

• If I assign a task or responsibility for part of the action plan, how is the person notified?
  The person will receive an automated email from ERMS.
• Will the injured person be notified when the action plan and investigation has been completed?
  Yes. The injured person will receive an automated email from ERMS.
• Can I notify my local Health & Safety Representative about an incident?
  Yes. The incident or hazard report needs to be submitted and then exported to a PDF document. This document is emailed to the HSR. You can find your local HSR on the HSR list.
• How can I request Campus Services take action in response to a hazard or an incident?
  You can request Campus Services to take action in response to an incident or a hazard report by forwarding your incident/hazard email to us-campusservices@unimelb.edu.au. Campus Services will review the incident/hazard report provided and either:
  • Raise a work order and advise you of the work order number via email, or
  • Respond and clarify if Campus Services does not hold the responsibility for requested action.

WHS Risk - Risk Assessment

• I submitted a risk assessment for approval but it has now disappeared, where is it?
  When a risk assessment is submitted to the Risk Approver it disappears from the Risk Owner view until it is approved by the Risk Approver. Once approved it returns to the worklist of the Risk Owner.
• My risk assessment was rejected by my supervisor (Risk Approver) and now my supervisor cannot see the risk assessment, what happened to it?
  If the Risk Approver rejects a risk assessment, it is removed from their view and returned to the Risk Owner's draft risks list. The Risk Owner will need to edit the risk assessment as requested by the Risk Approver and re-submit for approval.