Nova Scotia Community College
PA-12: Workplace Health and Safety

The baseline was adopted for the 2011/12 academic year because incident training was first conducted to all staff the year prior. This training and the introduction to the online reporting system caused a large increase in the amounts of incidents reported. The 2011/12 academic year better reflects the current reporting system and training.

Management of the incident report process is the responsibility of the Occupational Health Safety and Environmental services (OHS&E) department at NSCC. Consistent reporting of all incidents, including near miss and minor incident reporting, in one way that an organization is able to asses its safety culture. A workplace that promotes incident reporting in a no blame/fact finding manner nurtures an environment of continuous improvement and a positive safety culture. Incident reporting is a crucial component of any safety management system and is mandated under the Occupational Health and Safety Act of Nova Scotia. OHS&E services reviews all incidents occurring at NSCC, including minor first aid and near miss incidents. This review process and analysis is crucial to continuous improvement of the safety culture within the college. The review process for incident reports allows the OHS&E team to analyze trends, determine areas for improvement, provide targeted training and education, or expenditure of other resources to reduce the risk of harm to people, property and the environment. Although the number of reported incidents has increased, this is indicative of better incident report training. NSCC Library Services provides access for students, faculty and staff to the following Workplace Health & Safety databases: • OH&S Databases (wide variety of resources on the topic of occupational health and safety provided by the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health & Safety (CCOHS)) • SafetyCare Streaming Video Package (video library of Workplace Health & Safety and Skills Training videos)