The Chartered Institute for the Management of Sport and Physical Activity (CIMSPA) has given its backing to a new benchmarking platform that enables operators to monitor the type and level of accidents occurring at health clubs and all types of leisure facilities across the UK.

STITCH is a leisure management accident analysis tool developed by health and safety specialist Right Directions, the company behind Sport England’s Quest quality scheme, ukactive’s Code of Practice and FLAME Awards and accreditation for the ASA’s Learn to Swim Pathway.

It is hoped the new platform will enable operators to raise safety standards by applying past knowledge to avoid accidents and tragedies at leisure centres

The new online platform captures, collates and aggregates accident and ‘near miss’ data, providing a live snapshot of key performance indicators that allow management to monitor accident trends locally and nationally, while club and centre managers can review site trends and avoidable incidents.

Operators are guided as they input details of any accident, including who was responsible for the centre at the time of the event, whether the accident was RIDDOR (the statutory Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations) reportable, if it was avoidable, and whether any employee was unable to work as a result.

Comprehensive filters and data interrogation functions then sort the information to create bespoke graphs enabling users to issue reports on specific data such as accidents and injuries, action taken, outcomes and actions to prevent reoccurrence. Graphs can also be issued on who the accident involved - staff, contractor or customer - as well as metrics such as age group, location and activity.

CIMSPA, which recently confirmed a new corporate partnership with Right Directions, believes the new tool is an important step towards raising standards across the industry. “Our members work hard to minimise the risk of accidents and injuries in the sport and leisure sector and trend analysis through a benchmarking platform like STITCH can only help them to deliver safer activity opportunities to the public,” said Tara Dillon, CIMSPA’s interim COO.