Reasons for the Failure of Incident Reporting in the Healthcare and Rail Industries

Incident reporting systems have recently been established across the UK rail and healthcare industries. These initiatives have built on the perceived success of reporting systems within aviation. There is, however, a danger that the proponents of these schemes have signi#cantly over-estimated the impact that they can have upon the operation of complex, safety-critical systems. This paper, therefore, provides a brief overview of the problems that limit the utility of incident reporting in the the rail and healthcare industries