Report an incident or hazard

Reporting and recording incidents and hazards helps us to:

• remedy or isolate hazards to ensure they can’t cause further harm
• prevent future incidents and hazards
• meet our legal obligations.

We use the UQSafe-Incident system to manage incident and hazard reports.

Report an incident or hazard

What to report

Incidents, injuries and illnesses

You should report all incidents involving staff, students, contractors and visitors that occur:

• on UQ sites
• while you're undertaking UQ business off site
• while you're completing your normal journey to work.

Incidents you should report include:

• injuries
• illnesses
• near misses.

You should also contact a First Aid Officer or Security Officer in your area if you or someone else is injured or ill.

Serious incidents

For some types of serious incidents, you should:

1. Perform any required emergency action.
2. Phone the Director, Health, Safety and Wellness to report the incident as soon as possible.

These types of events are:

• fatalities
• serious bodily injury
• work-caused illness
• dangerous events.

See the Health and Safety Incident and Hazard Reporting Procedures [2.10.07] for more detailed definitions.

Hazards

Hazards are situations that may cause incidents and injuries if not corrected. You should report hazards that could pose a risk to:

• a person's health or safety
• the environment (including air, water or land).

Using the UQSafe-Incident system

If you can’t access UQSafe, contact the ITS Service Desk.

If you have questions about how to use the system, contact your area’s safety officer or the Health, Safety and Wellness Division.

UQSafe - pocketSafety app for mobiles

The UQSafe - pocketSafety incident reporting app enables UQ staff and students to quickly and easily report workplace incidents or hazards via their mobile device. It makes reporting within UQSafe simple, fast and mobile-friendly. The app is not available in China and Russia. 

Both iPhones and Android devices are supported and seamlessly integrate with UQSafe-Incident. To install, follow the UQSafe User Guide (PDF, 276.4 KB). 

Support and counselling services

If you are experiencing any distress after being involved in or exposed to a workplace incident, you are encouraged to seek support. Resources and support available for UQ staff and students include,

• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) 
• Student Counselling Program 
• Self-help resources - bullying
• Sexual Misconduct Support Unit (SMSU)
• Mental Health Champions Network
• Discrimination and Harassment Contact Officers.

Supervisors and managers

Supervisors and managers have additional responsibilities for investigating and actioning incidents and hazards reported by their staff. The UQSafe guide for managers and supervisors (PDF, 552KB) has instructions for using the relevant functions in the reporting system. 

Seek advice from your local safety manager/coordinator if you require assistance with the incident investigation.  If infrastructure issues have been identified (e.g. trip hazard) the supervisor or delegate can raise an Archibus job to make P&F aware of the issue. The Archibus job number should be documented in the incident/hazard action plan report. 

See the Health and Safety Incident and Hazard Reporting Procedures [2.10.07] for more information about your responsibilities.

Safety coordinators and safety managers

The UQSafe guide for safety coordinators and and safety managers (PDF, 317KB) has instructions for managing incident and hazard reports as a Workplace Health and Safety Coordinator (WHSC), safety manager or safety coordinator.

See the Health and Safety Incident and Hazard Reporting Procedures [2.10.07] for more information about your responsibilities.

Incident reports before 1 July 2016

Incidents that occurred before 1 July 2016 were reported in the old UQ Injury, Illness and Incident Reporting System.

These reports have been archived for record-keeping purposes. Contact Health, Safety and Wellness if you need access to an archived incident report.