Introduction to Health and Safety at Work

8.4.4 Investigation interview techniques
It must be made clear at the outset and during the 
course of the interview that the aim is not to apportion 
blame but to discover the facts and use them to prevent 
similar accidents in the future.
A witness should be given the opportunity to explain 
what happened in their own way without too much 
interruption and suggestion. Questions should then be 
asked to elicit more information. These should be of the 
open type, which do not suggest the answer. Questions 
starting with the words in Figure 8.3 are useful.
‘Why’ should not be used at this stage. The facts 
should be gathered fi rst, with notes being taken at the 
end of the explanation. The investigator should then read 
them or give a summary back to the witness, indicating 
clearly that they are prepared to alter the notes, if the 
witness is not content with them.
If possible, indication should be given to the 
witness about immediate actions that will be taken to 
prevent a similar occurrence and that there could be 
further improvements depending on the outcome of the 
investigation.
Accidents can often be very upsetting for witnesses, 
which should be borne in mind. This does not mean they 
will not be prepared to talk about what has happened. 
They may in fact wish to help, but questions should 
be sensitive; upsetting the witness further should be 
avoided.
Figure 8.3
Questions to be asked in an investigation.

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Incident and accident investigation and reporting
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8.4.5 Comparison with relevant standards
There are usually suitable and relevant standards which 
may come from the HSE, industry or the organization 
itself. These should be carefully considered to see if:
➤
suitable standards are available to cover legal 
standards and the controls required by the risk 
assessments
➤
the standards are suffi cient and available to the 
organization
➤
the standards were implemented in practice
➤
the standards were implemented, why was there a 
failure?
➤
changes should be made to the standards.