When talking about incidents where a staff member is affected, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) definitions of adverse events should be used:

• Accident: an event that results in injury or ill health
• Incident: these events can be classified as:
• Near miss – an event not causing harm, but has the potential to cause injury or ill health. In HSE guidance the term ‘near miss’ includes dangerous occurrences, which are outlined below
• Undesired circumstance – a set of conditions or circumstances that have the potential to cause injury or ill health, e.g. untrained nurses handling heavy patients
• Dangerous occurrence: one of a number of specific, reportable adverse events, as defined in RIDDOR 2013. Work-related adverse events may need to be reported to the HSE if they meet certain criteria. Information about when to report an adverse event can be found here.

Practice points

• Consider how near-miss and patient safety incidents are reported in your organisation 
• How do you record the information and which system do you use?