Independent investigations into accidents, incidents, near-miss events, complaints and more. In general anything that has cause for concern.
Vincent Theobald-Vega is very experienced at undertaking independent investigations. His cases go back to 1989 and include numerous high profile incidents. Some of his investigations have been tested in Court, including Magistrates, Crown and civil claims Courts, for both prosecution and defense. Investigations undertaken have involved many different bodies including the following:
the HSE, Environmental Health Officers, Environment Agency, police, fire brigades, Home Office, insurance companies, Unions, and many other bodies.
Impartial independent investigations are undertaken (and documented) in accordance with the HSG245 standard. This is the HSE’s current best practice guidance for investigations.
Under normal circumstances investigations are undertaken openly (as demanded by best practice). However, we can also work under the seal of ‘Legal Privilege’ (for which you need to engage a solicitor). This added protection is advised when you are in a situation that may involve legal action.
The outcome of an investigation should always include recommendations that will address the root causes of the incident. This applies even when a complaint is not justified there will still be some issue that will have provoked the complaint and that still needs to be addressed. Of course, our investigations always look for root causes. We also look for common causes shared with other potential incidents, that could have been worse than the one being investigated. Our main purpose of investigation will always be to prevent future incidents, by identifying the lessons that need to be learnt. We then do our best to help you implement the actions needed to learn from those lessons.
Additional investigation services
Vincent can provide remote support for you to undertake your own investigations. This is done by providing help and advice on the collection and interpretation of the evidence that you collect. This type of support is especially useful for people who do not have much experience in undertaking investigations on their own, or where you find a situation that is completely new to you.
Vincent can also undertake reviews of investigations to help you identify if the investigation really did find all the evidence that it should have done, or to get a different perspective on a case and better identify causes or solutions.
If you require training to develop practical investigation skills then we can also provide one:to:one training, or in house courses. Occasionally we will also provide an open course on investigation skills. These are courses are designed to enable you to undertake investigations yourself, not just to understand the process. They concentrate on the skills for collecting and interpreting evidence for yourself.
Fully independent and impartial.
Our services are always fully independent (we do not have any links to companies and organisations that require feedback or have control over us) and are impartial. You pay for an honest, truthful, impartial assessment that is open and transparent. This does not compromise our complete confidentiality – all our data is protected under GDPR and commercial confidentiality.