Working safe means working in an environment where the probability of accident occurrence is small. Often, this is not small enough. In the Netherlands, approximately 7 million employees work in some 500,000 companies. Every year, 230,000 workers have an accident. This is more than 600 victims a day. One third of these victims are (temporarily) no longer at work due to their accident. Every year, eighty to ninety people die as a result of an occupational accident. That is almost two deaths per week.
RIVM manages and develops a method to estimate serious
occupational risks and to take effective measures to manage these
risks. This method is ORCA: Occupational Risk Calculator. ORCA is
based on the analysis of the serious occupational accidents
documented in incidents reports of the labor inspectorate. These
accidents can be consulted via a separate software package Storybuilder.
Accidents involving dangerous substances
For companies working with hazardous substances specific
regulations apply regarding the prevention of major accidents.
Depending on the amount of hazardous materials within a company,
the "Hazards of Major Accident Decree 1999" (Brzo 1999,
this is the Dutch implementation of Seveso II) or the
"Additional Risk Assessment (ARIE) applies.