Incident Notification

Incident Notification

The Work Health and Safety Act 2012 (WHS Act) requires the regulator to be notified of certain 'notifiable incidents'. This fact sheet will help you decide if the regulator needs to be notified of a work-related injury, illness or dangerous incident under the Act.

Work health and safety (WHS) regulators are committed to preventing work-related deaths and injuries. Notifying the regulator of 'notifiable incidents' can help identify causes of incidents and prevent similar incidents at that workplace as well as other workplaces.

Information that will be requested

A clear description of the incident with as much detail as possible will help the regulator assess whether or not the incident is notifiable and the need for a follow-up investigation by the regulator.

Where insufficient details are provided in a telephone notification, the regulator may contact the notifier if further information is required. All WHS regulators have agreed the information in the table below should be collected as a minimum at the point of incident notification.

What Happened?
  • Provide an overview of what happened
  • Nominate the type of notifiable incident - was it death, serious injury or illness, or a 'dangerous incident'?
When did it happen?
  • Date and time
Where did it happen?
  • Incident address
  • Details that describe the specific location of the notifiable incident to assist instructions about site disturbance - for example, the section of the warehouse or the particular piece of equipment the incident involved
What happened?
  • Detailed description of the notifiable incident
Who did it happen to?
  • Injured persons' name, salutation (Mr, Mrs, Ms etc), date of birth, address and contact number
  • Injured persons' occupation
  • Relationship of the injured person to the entity notifying
How and where are they being treated (if applicable)
  • Description of serious injury or illness ie nature of injury
  • Initial treatment of serious injury or illness
  • Where the patient has been taken for treatment

Who is the person conducting the business or undertaking?
  • Legal and trading name
  • Business address (if different from incident address), ABN/ACN and contact details including phone number and email
What has/is being done?
  • Action taken or intended to be taken to prevent recurrence (if any)
Who is notifying?
  • Notifiers' name, salutation, contact phone number and position at workplace
  • Name, phone number and position of person to contact for further information (if different from above)

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