Reports of occupational injuries, incidents, and observed risks

Occupational injuries
The category of occupational injuries includes accidents, travel accidents, and occupational diseases.

Accidents: Something has happened and at least one person was injured ("Ouch," this hurt and was an injury). It does not matter how small the injury is.

Road traffic accidents: An accident that has occurred on the way to or from work, provided the normal route is followed. The threshold of the home is the limit for where the journey begins and ends.

Occupational illness: An occupational illness is reported when you have been exposed to something harmful in the work environment that affects your physical or mental health over a long period of time, resulting in sick leave.

Examples of harmful factors:

• Heavy work or inappropriate postures that can cause back or joint problems.
• Unilateral work that can cause muscle and tendon damage.
• Dangerous substances that can cause eczema, allergies, respiratory problems and cancer.
• Psychologically stressful working conditions that can cause mental health problems or psychosomatic illnesses such as stomach ulcers or heart problems.
• Vibrations that can damage blood vessels, nerves and joints.
• Noise that can cause hearing damage.

For Afa Försäkring to be able to assess the right to compensation for an occupational disease, it must be approved by the Swedish Social Insurance Agency or be included in the ILO list of occupational illnesses. The symptoms must also persist for at least 180 days after the date of onset of the disease.

Incidents
Incident reporting means that something has happened, but no one was hurt ("Oops,” that could have been bad). Events that are perceived as unpleasant, threatening (threat of violence) or that otherwise create fear and are perceived as dangerous should be recorded here.

Observed risk
You report an observed risk when you see (observe) the risk that something could happen ("Aha"). It is desirable to identify the danger at this stage, before an accident occurs. Reporting as an observed risk can be used relatively widely when something has been observed that needs to be documented and further managed by the relevant manager. May include events via digital tools (e.g. Zoom) and phone calls, which are not considered to be part of incident reporting.

Serious incidents, injuries and accidents at work
In the case of serious incidents, occupational injuries and accidents, the relevant manager must report the incident to the Swedish Work Environment Authority or the Swedish Electrical Safety Authority with specific reporting requirements.

All employees can report an incident in IA via a common reporting link (see above Reporting of occupational injuries, incidents and observed risks). Relevant login credentials are your regular user credentials required to log in to your computer. Should an employee for any reason lack login details, the relevant manager should assist in reporting the event. Another option is to contact HR, hr@hb.se.

The employee who reports an incident receives a confirmation email.

In the event of an occupational injury, i.e. reports of accidents, travel accidents and occupational illness, it is the manager who must notify the Swedish Social Insurance Agency and Afa Försäkring. This is done in the IA system, preferably together with the employee as additional information may be needed. See further heading; Handling of reporting for managers

Basically, all reports are sent to an occupational health and safety representative so that he or she is aware that something has happened and can follow up on any action taken by the employer. However, such representatives do not see who has made the report (or personal data) but only the description of the event, where the reporter is employed and the relevant manager.

All reported events go to the employee's manager. Managers are responsible for assessing, investigating and addressing incidents and risks. Therefore, the manager receives an email when an occupational injury, incident or risk observation has been reported. The manager can then appoint other people to assist with the investigation and action. Any designated persons must then report back to the relevant manager, who in turn must report back to the employee what has been done in terms of measures. This should be done before the case in the IA system can be considered to be closed. The responsibility for following up on actions and providing feedback to the employee can never be assigned by the manager to any other role or function.

In the case of occupational injuries, accidents and incidents, it is important that the manager carefully reviews the course of events as a basis for the investigation. An occupational illness may not be caused by a single event, but may be the result of several situations leading to the onset of the illness. Try to assess together (manager and employee) the factors that may have influenced or led to the occupational injury.

Reasons for reports can be in several areas. These may include deficiencies in equipment, materials, protective devices, safety regulations, non-compliance with procedures, lack of training or experience for the task, occasional inattention, unauthorised work practices, prolonged unilateral stress, inappropriate posture, lack of planning, lack of clarity in the distribution of work, prolonged psychological stress, etc. Documentation is done in the IA system through investigation, risk assessment and specifying measures that are then followed up.

Insurance for occupational injuries
Occupational injury insurance (TFA, PSA) is included in the collective agreements in all areas of the Swedish labour market.

Compensation can be paid during the acute period of illness of the occupational injury, in case of permanent disability, and in case of death.

For more information on the insurance policies, go to the website AFA Insurance.

If a serious incident, occupational injury or accident occurs, the responsible manager must report the incident to the Swedish Work Environment Authority or the Swedish Electrical Safety Authority as they have specific reporting requirements. The notification is made via the IA system by directing the manager to the relevant external website where the incident is reported.

These should be reported:

• Deaths
• Serious accident or other harmful impact resulting in personal injury.

Clarification "serious accident or other harmful impact resulting in personal injury":

In a serious accident, a person may have been seriously or slightly injured. In some cases, psychological injury can also be considered an accident, for example if a person goes into shock. Threats of violence can lead to this as well. Initially, it is usually difficult to make such an assessment.

Harmful impact means that workers have been exposed to harmful factors in the work environment over a period of time that may be the cause of an injury. More serious injuries can be injuries such as:

• Results in a fracture of a bone in the body.
• Causes severe bleeding, or severe damage to a nerve, muscle or tendon.
• Damage to internal organs.
• Means second or third degree burns or other burns covering more than 5% of the body surface. A burn is equivalent to a cold injury.

More serious injuries also include loss of a limb and damage to the sensory organs, as well as injuries that may result in long-term illness or future disability.

To handle a reported notification and incident, the manager logs in to the IA system, which is automatically linked to the email you receive when an incident is reported. 

Here's what you do as a manager:

1. Open the event by selecting it under the Event (Händelse) tab.

2. Check the Event title (Händelserubrik) and Sequence of events (Händelseförlopp) headings to ensure that they do not contain personal data. The header content is the basis for internal statistics for HB and Afa insurance and should therefore not contain personal data. If there are names or personal data, managers should delete these data.

3. You can add pictures, drawings and other documents about the event by clicking on the Attachments button. 

4. Click Save (Spara) and the event's status changes to Under investigation (Under utredning).

5. As a manager, you are responsible for the incident and you should therefore go to the Investigation (Utredning) tab to conduct a risk assessment and indicate who will investigate the incident. The investigator can be you as a manager or another manager in the university, or you can appoint another investigator whom you contact outside the IA system. For example, a property owner may need to investigate and remedy the incident. Remember to request feedback on actions taken from those contacted outside the IA system, so that you as the responsible manager can record the action taken.

6. A date is automatically entered in the Estimated completion date (Beräknad klar den) field, but this date can be manually changed to the date that you as a manager consider relevant.

7. Click Save (Spara) and the status of the incident will change to Under investigation (Under utredning).

8. Go to the Actions and follow-up (Åtgärder och uppföljning) tab. Here you as a manager add the following: the measures that have been identified, the relevant provider or other provider, assesses the risk after the measures have been carried out, specifies the person responsible for follow-up and the deadline (klardatum) for follow-up. The headings work order number (arbetsordernummer) and measures (åtgärdssteg) are headings you can omit filling in.

9. Click Save (Spara) and the event will change status. The date when actions are expected to be completed and the specified follow-up date will generate one or more reminder emails to you as the responsible manager.

10. As actions are completed, you as the manager of each action check the Done (Klar) box. Once all actions have been taken and follow-up is done, go to the Actions and follow-up (Åtgärder och uppföljning) tab and check the Done (Klar) box at the bottom.     

11. Click Save (Spara) and the event's status changes to completed. An email is now automatically sent to the occupational health and safety organisation and to the employee stating that the reported incident is marked as done. As a manager, you also need to make personal contact with the employee and report back on the actions taken.

12. When the event relates to occupational injury, i.e. accident, travel accident (to and from work) and occupational disease, the event must also be reported by you as a manager to the Swedish Social Insurance Agency and Afa Försäkring. This is done under the Notifications (Anmälningar) tab by the manager clicking through to the relevant web form. Here, some additions need to be made in order for the notifications to be complete. Therefore, ask the employee to participate in the completion of these reports. When you have completed the notification to the Swedish Social Insurance Agency and Afa Försäkring, you will receive a confirmation/receipt of the report. Save the receipt and PDF of the report so that you can access them later.

In cases where the reported event is of the nature of a serious incident, occupational injury or occupational accident, you as a manager are obliged to report to the Swedish Work Environment Authority or the Swedish Electrical Safety Authority (in the case of events linked to electrical faults). The manager should then go to the Notifications (Anmälningar) tab and notify on the relevant external links. After making the notification, save the confirmation/receipt of the notification and mark in the IA system that the notification has been made. 

As an occupational health and safety representative at the University of Borås, you will automatically receive an email notification that a new event has been registered in the IA system. This is based on the area for which you are a representative and because the organisation must be aware of events that affect employees and their work environment. In the email, there will be a link that you can click on to see the relevant report. The report will not specify the identity of the reporter, but only the relevant manager. However, it will show where in the organisation the incident occurred and the description of the incident.

If you are not sure whether an incident should be reported or not, contact your manager or HR (hr@hb.se).

Film:
Introduction to the IA system for managers (Swedish only)
To move on in the introduction, first click on the X to close the box asking for email, then on the orange button Move on (Gå vidare).