Occupational injuries and incidents

If something happens at work, you must report occupational injuries and incidents. The employer is obliged to investigate the cause of the incident and to take measures to prevent it from happening again and leading to an accident next time. The procedure for reporting occupational injuries and incidents is described below.

Definition of occupational injury

An occupational injury is defined as

  • injury resulting from an accident or other harmful effect at work
  • accident on the way to or from work
  • occupational disease, such as stress-related diseases, strain diseases etc, or
  • infection (e.g. when travelling abroad on official missions).

Incident means an undesirable event that could have led to ill health or an accident.

Responsibility

Employees who suffer an occupational injury or incident must report it themselves in the IA system. The work environment representative and/or the immediate manager can be involved in the notification so that preventive or remedial measures can be initiated as soon as possible. The head of department, the work environment representative, the person injured and the laboratory safety coordinator at the Property Management Office will receive information about the notification through the system. The head of department is responsible for ensuring that, where appropriate, measures are taken to prevent further people from suffering the same injury or incident.

The head of department is also responsible for ensuring that employees in the workplace are aware of the procedure for reporting an occupational injury.

Students who suffer an occupational injury or incident must also report this themselves in the IA system.

The occupational injury or incident is investigated by the Property Management Office, which contacts department representatives and work environment representatives if necessary. If the occupational injury is due to psychosocial factors in the work environment, the Human Resources Office is contacted.

Serious injuries or incidents

When reporting serious accidents or incidents, notification must also be made to the Swedish Work Environment Authority, Arbetsmiljöverket (within 24 hours). In this case, you should contact the laboratory safety coordinator at the Property Management Office, phone 08-16 20 00 (switchboard), before making the notification. If in doubt as to whether an accident or incident should be labelled as ‘serious’, you should also contact the Property Management Office.

Student injury

Students who suffer an occupational injury as defined above must report the injury in the same way as employees.

Students must also report their injury to Kammarkollegiet in cases where the injury results in costs exceeding SEK 500 for, for example, medical care, pain and suffering and dental damage.

Follow the instructions. The student then sends a notification signed by the teacher (equivalent) directly to Kammarkollegiet.

Preventive work

The employer is obliged to investigate the cause of an occupational injury or incident. The head of department (or equivalent) is responsible for this. In this respect, it is useful to liaise with the laboratory safety coordinator at the Property Management Office, or the Human Resources Office.

Compensation for personal injury

Through the AFA/PSA insurance, you can receive a supplement to the compensation paid by the Swedish Social Insurance Agency. All employees at Stockholm University are covered by the insurance. Compensation can be paid for loss of income if you are on sick leave due to an accident at work for more than 14 days or have a permanent disability. Compensation can also be paid for medical and health care costs incurred as a result of the work injury. Costs for damaged clothing, glasses, hearing aids, prostheses and the like are also reimbursed. Amounts under SEK 100 are not paid.

If you want to apply for financial compensation for the injury/illness from AFA/PSA insurance, you can do so via the link below. If you have any questions about AFA/PSA insurance, contact their customer centre, phone 0771-88 00 99.

Archiving

The Property Managemnt Office is responsible for archiving all documents relating to ongoing work injury investigations as well as the final archiving of closed cases.

Compilation of occupational injuries and incidents

The Property Management Office compiles all reported occupational injuries and incidents at Stockholm University. The summary is regularly reported to Stockholm University's safety committee, the Council for Work Environment and Equal Opportunities (RALV).

Checklists

Here we have compiled some checklists for what to do if an employee or student suffers various types of occupational injuries or incidents.

Checklist – employee or student has a serious accident on campus
Checklist – threats via email and social media
Checklist – employee or student experiencing a more serious personal crisis

Contact

In the first place, please contact your department.

Last updated: 2024-09-30

Source: Human Resources Office