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SafetyTerm

Incident

An incident is an unwanted event that led, or could have led, to injury, damage or environmental pollution. Accidents and near misses are both a type of incident.

Explanation

Incident is the collective term for everything that was not intended: an accident with injury, damage to equipment or a building, a leak or environmental pollution, and also a near miss. Which types you track separately is up to you; many organisations use separate categories for injury, damage and environment.

You record an incident as soon as possible: what happened, where, when, who was involved, what was the result and what was done immediately. Then you assess the severity, investigate the cause and take measures. For serious occupational accidents there are reporting obligations in the Netherlands; see the current rules at the Labour Authority.

An occupational accident is an incident in which an employee is injured at work. A near miss is an incident without injury or damage. A quality non-conformity is a different kind of event: it is about not meeting a requirement, not about safety.

Example from practice

An employee cuts himself while unpacking a box. The supervisor arranges first aid, the report goes into the system, the cause turns out to be a blunt knife and a measure follows for replacing and checking knives.

© 2026 BrydgeOne. General information, not legal or other professional advice. No rights can be derived from this explanation.

In BrydgeOne

Where you work with Incident

Incidents & reportsLog incidents and turn them into follow-up. ActionsFollow up corrective and preventive actions. Environmental reportsFollow up environmental incidents and complaints.
Knowledge base

Keep reading

Recording and analysing incidents and near missesEvery incident and near miss tells you something about how safe your work really is. You can only learn from it if it is reported, recorded and analysed. This article shows a practical way to do that. Incident investigation: finding the root cause with the 5 whys methodIncident investigation starts with a simple question: why did this happen? If you keep asking it, you often end up at a cause in how the work is organized rather than at the person who happened to be there. Below you can read how that works in practice. Registering and reporting a work accident: what employers need to doWhen there is a work accident, you handle reporting and recording on two tracks: you document every accident internally, and for serious accidents you also notify the authorities. Below you can read what you always do, how to investigate and where to check the current reporting rules.
Glossary

See also

Near missNear missRoot cause analysisRoot cause analysisLTIFLost Time Injury FrequencyCAPACorrective and Preventive ActionInspectie SZWNetherlands Labour Authority (formerly Inspectie SZW)

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