2nd Edition of our Sector Specific Equestrian Incident Report Books
After a long process of design iterations, and sourcing a suitable printers, we have now have a good stock of sector specific Equestrian Incident Report Books and these are ready to be sent out to riding venues across the country!
What is an Incident Report Book?
Under the Health and Safety (First Aid) Regulations 1981, employers and organisations are required to make adequate provision for first aid in the workplace, and part of that is a mechanism for recording and potentially reporting any incidents, accidents or near misses that take place. It is often called an Accident Book in workplaces.
The simplest way to do comply with this law is to have an Incident Report Book. These are readily available both in print and online, but are very generic and can often be a little tricky to complete if they don’t make sense to the user, or there are irrelevant sections etc. In any case, a paper incident report book should contain removable incident report forms. They should be completed, usually by the first aider involved, within 24 hours of the incident, and then filed securely.
What is different about our Equestrian Incident Report Book?
Our Equestrian Incident Report Book is specifically designed for use in Equestrian settings. While lots of other sectors are increasingly moving online, we appreciate that this just isn’t practical in an equestrian setting where there is muck and dust and rain, and where a computer either wouldn’t have a wi-fi signal, or wouldn’t last long if it did! In many (most?!) equestrian venues, pen and paper still reign supreme, so we’ve re-thought the standard incident report book to make it as relevant and simple to use as possible.
Whilst acknowledging that occasionally pen and paper is the best solution, we also are aware that using paper and printing comes at an environmental cost. This is particularly acute to us at the First Aid Training Co-operative as we are otherwise almost entirely paper free as an organisation. Our printing partners for these books are Tipografia Valdostana in northern Italy. They specialise in bespoke and unusual printing requests and were only too happy to help us with ours. They are also very aware of the environmental impact of their industry and reduce their impact through running their entire operation on renewable energy, and print using soy-based inks on FSC accredited sustainably sourced paper stock.
What’s inside our Equestrian Incident Report Book?
- The first two pages of our Equestrian Incident Report Book contain useful instructions on how to complete the forms themselves.
- Information and guidance to ensure that you are fulfilling your duties as an employer or organisation with a duty of care
- Links to more information if you need it.
- 50 individual, double sided incident report forms
- Each form contains the essential information gathering questions – date, time etc but also what were they doing (mucking out, grooming, exercising etc) and what were they wearing (hat, air vest, boots etc).
- Other questions that are relevant to the equestrian venue and herd – you won’t find ‘Horse Name?’ as a question on a standard incident report form!
- Each sheet is already individually numbered so that by simply adding the date, you have a reliable way of ensuring that each completed form has a unique identifier, which can be important if an accident or incident needs to be reported or referred to later.
- A simple diagram of a human body, as indicating the site of an injury is much easier than describing it.
- Each form is easily removable, we’ve opted for a rubber bound tear out format similar to an A4 note pad, rather than a perforated pad, as they are just much easier to use.
- The entire book has then been pre-drilled so that either the whole book, or just the completed forms, can be stored in a lever arch file if you’d prefer to do that, without having to locate a hole punch first! (Remember to store completed forms securely as they contain potentially sensitive information.)
- Finally, 5 sheets from the end of the book, you’ll find a re-ordering reminder. The last thing you want is to need to record an incident and to discover that you’ve run out of forms. This way that shouldn’t ever happen.
Why is it important to have equestrian specific information in an Incident Report Form?
Incident Reports are on one hand a legal requirement, but on the other they serve as a useful tool that an employer or organisation manager can use to help make their operation or venue safer.
By reviewing incident reports at least annually, one can get a sense of any trends or repeated incidents, and take steps to avoid these happening again. Hence the importance of identifying which horse was involved in an incident, or what element of work was being undertaken at the yard. If two different grooms were kicked by the same horse, that consistency might go unnoticed if it wasn’t specifically communicated. However by looking back at the completed forms, these things can be picked up and avoided in the future.
Want to find out more about Incident Reporting? Check out our other blog: Top 10 Things Horse Riders Need to Know About Incident Reporting
How do I order an Equestrian Incident Report Book?
Books can be ordered directly from our website and will be sent to your door by one of our excellent team!
Get first aid confident – get trained!
Knowing what to look for and what to do BEFORE something happens is essential and attending a first aid course will give you the knowledge and the confidence to deal with many first aid incidents. Our courses are structured to give you confidence in dealing with an incident as well as the competence to do good quality first aid. Find out more about our courses on our specific equestrian first aid webpage.
