How to write a work accident report in Turkey: form, sample wording and who prepares it

“Who’s going to write the report?” “You write it, you were there.” “What do I write, whose name do I put down?” This conversation is common in the workshop after the injured employee has gone to hospital. The accident report is a document that should be written right after the accident while everyone’s memory is fresh, yet who writes it and what goes into it often stays unclear. The result is a few lines on a sheet of paper with no time and no witness, and months later the investigation is based on that sheet. In this article we set out how to write a work accident report in Turkey, what goes into it, who is responsible and what Turkish legislation — mainly Occupational Health and Safety Law No. 6331 — says about timing.

A work accident report is the internal document that records, in order and right after the accident, when, where and how the event happened, who was affected, who the witnesses were and what was done first. It is different from the SGK notification form: the form is the notification filed with Turkey’s Social Security Institution (SGK), while the report is the first step of the company’s own investigation and record-keeping.

How to write a work accident report: step by step

1. Help the injured person first. First aid and referral to a healthcare facility come before the report; do not keep the injured person waiting to write it.
2. Make the area safe and photograph it without changing anything. Show the machine, floor, guards and surroundings; only then start cleaning up.
3. Take the witnesses’ names straight away. Who saw what gets mixed up after a few days.
4. Write the report on the day of the accident. Record times, people and sequence while the event is fresh, not later from memory.
5. Write what you saw, do not interpret. Write observations such as “was working without gloves” instead of “was careless”.
6. Take witness statements separately. Let each person write in their own words, without seeing the others’ statements.
7. Have it signed and filed. The person who wrote the report, the supervisor and the witnesses sign it; a copy goes to the occupational safety specialist.

Work accident report form: what goes into it?

Nobody will impose an official report form on you; the headings below are a skeleton that works in practice, and the fictional account under them is a sample work accident report. You can shorten or extend it for your own workplace.

Sample wording: “At 14:20 the operator cutting on the band saw moved his right hand towards the line of the blade while pushing the workpiece; he was working without gloves. When the saw was stopped, a superficial cut was seen on his hand; it was dressed from the first aid cabinet and he was referred to a healthcare facility at 14:35. The protective cover was not in place.” (Fictional example)

Who writes the work accident report?

The Turkish law and regulation articles we read do not spell out who writes a document called an “accident report” or in what form; the obligation is distributed as follows. Under Article 14 of Law No. 6331, the employer keeps a record of all work accidents, carries out the necessary investigations and prepares reports on them. The occupational safety specialist works on investigating the causes of work accidents and the measures to prevent them from recurring, and makes recommendations to the employer (Regulation on Occupational Safety Specialists, Art. 9). In workplaces with an OHS committee, the committee investigates every work accident and gives the employer a report on the measures to be taken; the employer keeps investigation reports on accidents and other incidents at the workplace for review by labour inspectors (Regulation on OHS Committees, Art. 8 and Art. 10).

In practice, the report is usually prepared by the supervisor or shift lead who knows the event closely, and the occupational safety specialist and workplace physician step in at the investigation stage. Whoever prepares it, what matters is that it is a task with an owner that starts on the day of the accident. The report and its attachments — photos, witness statements and the referral document — should be kept in one file, and personal data such as the injured person’s health and identity details should be kept where only authorised people have access.

How soon must a work accident report be written?

The articles we read do not give a separate number of days for the report. The deadline is set for the SGK notification: under Article 14 of Law No. 6331 and Article 13 of Law No. 5510, the work accident must be reported to the SGK no later than three working days after the accident, and law enforcement must be informed immediately. For the date, time and account of events in the notification form to be consistent, the report needs to be written before the notification — in practice, on the day of the accident.

From the report to root cause and corrective action

The report describes the event; it does not find the cause. After the report, the root cause of the accident should be investigated and a corrective action opened against that cause. The protective cover not being in place is an observation; why the cover was removed, who is responsible for maintenance and what part production pressure played are root cause questions. If the action has no owner, due date and evidence of closure, the report just sits in a folder until the next accident.

Five common mistakes in accident reports

• A report without times: If the times of the event, first aid and referral are not written down, the sequence cannot be reconstructed later.
• Judgement statements: “Acted carelessly” is a conclusion, not an observation; it closes off the search for a root cause from the start.
• One-sided account: Only what the supervisor saw is written down; the account of the injured person and the witnesses is missing.
• Record without photos: The machine is repaired the next day and the floor cleaned; without photos, the conditions cannot be described.
• Report without an owner: If it is unclear who signed it and who it was handed to, the paper gets lost and the action never starts.

Where do Word, paper and WhatsApp fall short for accident reports?

A Word template is a good start for an accident report; it asks for the same headings every time. The problem is that after the accident the file circulates by email and turns into different versions, the photos stay on a phone, and the signed paper report sits in one folder while the action is in another spreadsheet. A WhatsApp message saying “there’s been an accident, photo attached” does not replace the report; the record of the time, witnesses and first aid can only be written later, and often never is. If accidents happen once or twice a year, this setup is manageable; as the number grows, merging the records becomes a job of its own.

One record from report to action in KurumsalPortal

The OHS Incident / Near Miss Management module records work accidents, near misses and hazardous situations with location and photos. After the record, the event is investigated, the root cause analysed and a corrective action assigned to an owner; the action is closed with evidence and the result is reflected in the closing report. The information in the report is carried through to the action follow-up without a break. Because employees use KurumsalPortal from their phone’s browser, no separate app is needed to start the record at the scene.

If actions need to be managed with owner, due date, priority and status, you can also look at the Task & Action Management module in the same portal. Records in the module are for internal tracking and do not replace the SGK notification.

To start the report with location and photos and follow it in one record until the action is closed with evidence, see the flow on the OHS Incident / Near Miss Management page.