Overview of the NEBOSH Incident Investigation

NEBOSH has collaborated on the development of this specialist qualification with the British Health and Safety Executive (HSE). HSE inspectors have noted that incident investigations were generally very poor. The collaboration, therefore, combines the advanced technical expertise of the HSE with NEBOSH’s ability to deliver strong vocational qualifications. The qualification is aimed at managers, supervisors, SHE Champions and aspiring health and safety practitioners. On completion of the qualification, candidates will be able to:

Carry out a solo accident investigation for noncomplex accidents and incidents including:

gathering of evidence
analysis of that evidence
produce an action plan; and
contribute to team incident investigations for large-scale incidents.

Employer will benefit from having an ‘in-house’ trained incident investigator who can carry out good quality incident investigations. Employer will also benefit from learning lessons from incident investigations. Once the root cause(s) of an incident have been identified and additional control measures put into place to deal with these causes, then there should be no recurrence of the same type of incident. In the longer term, this will save organizations money.

On completion of this qualification learner will be equipped with the necessary skills to carry out an unaided incident investigation of a noncomplex incident. The qualification will take you through the four steps to a good incident investigation. This includes providing you with the skills required to identify the immediate, underlying and root causes of incidents. Witness interviewing is a valuable skill for an incident investigator. The qualification, therefore, introduces you to the PEACE model for interviewing. Once you have gained an understanding of the PEACE process you will be able to apply this to three incident interviews as part of your final assessment. The knowledge, understanding and skills that you will gain from this qualification will also allow you to contribute to team investigations of larger-scale incidents.