by admin | Sep 11, 2026 | Consultancy Services, Health and Safety, Safety Update
A near miss can be easy to dismiss precisely because nobody was hurt. But the absence of injury does not prove that the controls worked. A credible near miss can reveal the same underlying failure that later causes a serious accident, giving managers an opportunity to act before the outcome depends on luck again.
A warning came before people were injured
In September 2026, the Health and Safety Executive reported a prosecution involving a scrap-metal site where an excavator-related near miss occurred just ten days before two members of the public were injured in a later event.
HSE found that the underlying failures in the earlier near miss were the same. Although the case arose in waste and recycling rather than construction, the management lesson transfers directly to construction sites where excavators, telehandlers, temporary access routes, lifting operations and changing layouts create comparable high-potential events.
Not every near miss is reportable under RIDDOR
Internal near-miss reporting and statutory reporting are not the same thing. Under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013, specified dangerous occurrences must be reported by the responsible person.
HSE’s dangerous-occurrence guidance sets out the categories. A site event may deserve urgent internal investigation without meeting one of those statutory categories.
That means the first management question should not simply be “Do we have to report this to HSE?” It should be “What allowed this to happen, and could the next occurrence seriously hurt somebody?” RIDDOR screening then sits alongside the investigation rather than replacing it.
A near miss may show that the risk assessment is no longer valid
Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires risk assessments to be reviewed where there is reason to suspect they are no longer valid or where there has been a significant change.
A near miss can provide exactly that reason. If a lifting plan assumes pedestrians will be excluded but someone enters the lifting zone because a barrier has been moved, the fact nobody was struck does not demonstrate success. It may show that one of the assumptions on which the plan depended is not reliable in practice.
The potential consequence should influence the response. A falling object missing somebody by two metres and the same object striking somebody can originate from exactly the same control failure.
Investigate causes, not just the person closest to the event
HSE’s HSG245, Investigating accidents and incidents, provides a practical framework based on gathering information, analysing it, identifying risk-control measures and developing and implementing an action plan.
Weak investigations often stop at the first human action: “the operator reversed without checking”, “the worker entered the exclusion zone” or “the supervisor did not notice”. Those facts may matter, but they are not always the underlying cause.
A stronger investigation asks why the behaviour was possible. Was physical segregation ineffective? Had the sequence changed? Was the method unrealistic for the actual site? Had a shortcut become normal practice? Was production pressure influencing decisions? Had the issue been reported previously? Was supervision appropriate?
Useful evidence may include photographs, CCTV, equipment data, witness accounts, RAMS, lifting or traffic plans, inspection records, competence information, permits and records of recent changes.
Corrective actions only count when they are implemented and tested
Many businesses investigate reasonably well and then lose control at the action stage. A report identifies actions, they are entered on a spreadsheet, a toolbox talk is delivered and the event is marked closed.
Corrective action should match the failure identified. If pedestrians can physically enter a plant operating area, changing the layout or providing effective segregation may be stronger than another verbal reminder. If a worker misunderstood a new procedure, targeted instruction or demonstration may be appropriate.
Each significant action should have an owner and a realistic completion date. For higher-potential events, an effectiveness check should follow: is the revised barrier still in place, is the new sequence being followed, has the same unsafe condition appeared elsewhere, and have supervisors challenged deviations?
Closing a spreadsheet cell is not the same as closing the risk.
What should you do now?
- Make near-miss reporting simple enough that workers will use it.
- Record the potential consequence, not only the fact nobody was injured.
- Screen RIDDOR requirements separately.
- Preserve useful evidence before site conditions change.
- Identify immediate, underlying and management-system causes where appropriate.
- Review the risk assessment and method if the event challenges existing assumptions.
- Use the hierarchy of control when selecting corrective action.
- Give actions named owners and deadlines.
- Check whether the same weakness exists on other projects.
- Verify afterwards that the corrective action has actually worked.
Our professional view
The phrase “near miss” can make an event sound less significant than it was. What matters is not how close somebody literally came to injury; it is what the event tells management about the controls.
A high-potential near miss is valuable information. The strongest organisations do not celebrate simply because nobody was hurt. They ask what would have happened if the timing, distance or position had been slightly different, and they use that warning to improve the system before the next event.
All Star Safety’s health and safety consultancy service includes accident and incident investigation, root-cause analysis, RIDDOR support and corrective-action planning. Our IOSH Managing Safely courses also cover incident investigation as part of practical risk management.
by admin | Aug 19, 2026 | Construction Site Management, In house training, Safety Update
A signed induction sheet or toolbox talk record can show that information was delivered, but it does not necessarily prove that it was understood. Recent research highlights how accents, jargon, background noise, time pressure and workplace culture can all weaken safety communication. For construction employers, the important question is whether workers can understand and apply the controls when conditions change.
Why a nod can be misleading
On 13 August, IOSH published an article examining language and cultural barriers in UK construction safety communication. The research behind it involved semi-structured interviews with 18 migrant construction workers, supervisors and managers.
One of the more useful findings was that communication difficulty is not simply about whether somebody speaks English. Accents, speed of speech, slang, colloquial expressions, background noise and the mental effort required to process instructions while working can all affect understanding.
The research also identified a difference between someone appearing to comply and genuinely understanding why a control is needed. A worker may copy colleagues, nod at a supervisor or perform a familiar task correctly without necessarily knowing how to react when the situation changes.
That is a particularly important distinction on construction sites, where changing access arrangements, plant movements, simultaneous operations, weather, deliveries and alterations to the sequence of work can quickly make yesterday’s instructions incomplete.
What does the law actually require?
This is not a new legal requirement created by the IOSH research.
Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 already requires employers to provide the information, instruction, training and supervision necessary, so far as is reasonably practicable, to protect employees.
Under CDM 2015 Regulation 13, the principal contractor must ensure that a suitable site induction is provided. Contractors also have duties under Regulation 15 to provide workers under their control with appropriate supervision, instructions and information so that construction work can be carried out safely.
HSE’s site rules and induction guidance goes further in practical terms. It says site rules should be clear and easily understandable and that the need for translated rules for non-English-speaking workers should be considered.
HSE also makes an important point in its guidance on migrant workers: health and safety law does not require workers to speak English. What matters is that work instructions, risks, precautions and emergency procedures are communicated in a way workers can understand.
Language is only one part of the problem
It would be a mistake to treat this solely as an issue affecting migrant workers.
A native English speaker can misunderstand an instruction because a supervisor uses technical jargon, talks too quickly, gives several instructions at once or delivers a briefing beside running plant where half of it cannot be heard.
New or inexperienced workers can also lack the context needed to understand abbreviations and site terminology that experienced personnel take for granted.
HSE’s guidance on safety-critical communications recommends considering who needs the information, the method used to communicate it, when it should be delivered and whether the language is appropriate to the workforce’s literacy and first language. For particularly important information, HSE suggests considering more than one communication method.
That might mean a verbal briefing supported by a drawing, photographs, a marked-up logistics plan or a physical demonstration rather than relying on several pages of written RAMS alone.
The risk should therefore be treated as a communication-system issue, not automatically as a weakness in the individual receiving the information.
How can supervisors check that people really understand?
Simply asking “Do you understand?” is not a particularly strong test.
Most people will say yes, particularly in a group. Someone may not want to admit that they did not understand the supervisor, may feel embarrassed asking for repetition or may not realise that they have misunderstood the instruction in the first place.
IOSH’s recent article recommends checking understanding by asking workers to explain or demonstrate the activity in their own words. HSE similarly advises employers to check that workers fully understand the information and training they receive.
In practice, a supervisor could ask:
- “Talk me through how you’re going to do this.”
- “Where is the exclusion zone?”
- “What would make you stop the job?”
- “What happens if this access route becomes blocked?”
- “Show me where you’re going to attach that.”
- “Who do you contact if the conditions change?”
Those questions test practical understanding without turning the briefing into an examination.
For a safety-critical task, asking someone to physically demonstrate the important step can be even more effective. The objective is not to catch people out; it is to discover misunderstanding before the work starts.
Make inductions and toolbox talks easier to understand
HSE recommends using plain, simple language when delivering induction and job-related training. Its guidance also suggests options such as interpreters, bilingual colleagues, buddy systems, videos, audio, recognised signs, symbols and hand signals where language differences exist.
On a construction site, that can be translated into some fairly straightforward improvements.
Keep briefings focused on the hazards and controls that actually matter that day. Avoid unexplained acronyms and unnecessary technical language. Where practical, show workers the location or equipment being discussed rather than describing it from the welfare cabin.
Plans, photographs and diagrams can be particularly useful for matters such as traffic routes, exclusion zones, lifting areas, emergency escape arrangements and changes to scaffold access.
Where translation is necessary, the critical safety message should still be verified. Translation software can be useful, and HSE recognises it as one possible option, but for complex or safety-critical instructions it is sensible professional practice to confirm that the translated information has retained the intended meaning.
The same principle applies to emergency arrangements. HSE specifically advises employers to ensure that workers fully understand emergency procedures rather than simply being told where they are written down.
What should you do now?
Construction managers and supervisors can make a useful improvement without creating another complicated procedure.
- Review whether site inductions use plain language and genuinely site-specific information.
- Identify workers who may need additional communication support before work starts.
- Avoid slang, unexplained abbreviations and unnecessarily technical language in briefings.
- Use photographs, drawings, demonstrations and marked-up plans where these communicate the risk better than text.
- Consider translated information where workers would otherwise struggle to understand safety-critical requirements.
- Deliver important briefings somewhere workers can actually hear them.
- Ask workers to explain or demonstrate key controls rather than simply asking whether they understand.
- Make it acceptable for someone to say that they did not understand the instruction.
- Check whether supervisors themselves have the communication skills needed to lead mixed-experience and multilingual teams.
- Review recurring unsafe behaviours to establish whether misunderstanding is contributing to them.
A toolbox talk signature should form part of the record, but it should not become the sole measure of whether communication has been effective.
Our professional view
The biggest risk is confusing evidence that a briefing happened with evidence that the briefing worked.
Construction businesses are understandably keen to retain induction records, signed RAMS and toolbox talk sheets. Those documents are important, but the real test is what happens when the worker leaves the briefing and encounters the job.
If someone can explain the hazard, demonstrate the control and knows what to do when circumstances change, the communication has achieved something meaningful.
Managers and supervisors play a major part in creating that environment. Broader management training such as IOSH Managing Safely and IOSH Working Safely can support better risk awareness and safety leadership, but it should complement rather than replace clear, task-specific information, instruction and supervision on site.