Wednesday 25 February 2004 - News - Health and safety
Wrong kind of accident books being stolen
Accident books are being
stolen from businesses and sold on to accident management firms
and personal injury lawyers, according to reports.
A recent article in Building magazine reported how one contractor was "braced for claims" after the theft of accident books. The article described how the concrete supplier received a warning from its insurance broker that accident books were being stolen from sites.
One week later the company's health and safety manager reported that two books had gone missing from their Cambridge site. An internal investigation found that the books had almost certainly been stolen. The report suggested that the books could have been sold on to accident management firms or personal injury lawyers.
However, Phil Grace, Norwich Union's casualty risk manager told us that what the article failed to recognise was that new regulations which came into effect on 1 January 2004 could, in time, overcome the problem.
He said: "The HSE has revised the format of the accident book to bring it into line with the requirements of the Data Protection Act. No longer is it simply the case that accident details are 'added in' to a book that contains details of all previous accidents.
"The new style accident book has one page for each entry and after being completed the page should be removed from the book and locked away for safe keeping."
He recommended that any retained old-style books should also be kept in a secure location.
Johnny Thomson
A recent article in Building magazine reported how one contractor was "braced for claims" after the theft of accident books. The article described how the concrete supplier received a warning from its insurance broker that accident books were being stolen from sites.
One week later the company's health and safety manager reported that two books had gone missing from their Cambridge site. An internal investigation found that the books had almost certainly been stolen. The report suggested that the books could have been sold on to accident management firms or personal injury lawyers.
However, Phil Grace, Norwich Union's casualty risk manager told us that what the article failed to recognise was that new regulations which came into effect on 1 January 2004 could, in time, overcome the problem.
He said: "The HSE has revised the format of the accident book to bring it into line with the requirements of the Data Protection Act. No longer is it simply the case that accident details are 'added in' to a book that contains details of all previous accidents.
"The new style accident book has one page for each entry and after being completed the page should be removed from the book and locked away for safe keeping."
He recommended that any retained old-style books should also be kept in a secure location.
Johnny Thomson
