RIDDOR Explained: Which Accidents You Must Report

 Short answer: you have to report a work-related death, a specified serious injury, or an injury that keeps someone off work for more than 7 days, plus certain diseases and dangerous occurrences, even if nobody actually got hurt. RIDDOR isn't asking you to log every scraped knuckle, it's asking for the incidents serious enough that the Health and Safety Executive needs to know about them.


DEATHS


Any death resulting from a work-related accident has to be reported, full stop. This excludes suicides, but includes a death that happens up to a year later if it's traceable back to a reportable injury from work.


SPECIFIED INJURIES


These are the injuries serious enough to report regardless of how long someone's off work: fractures other than to fingers or toes, amputations, permanent loss of sight, crush injuries to the head or torso, serious burns covering more than 10% of the body, scalping that needs hospital treatment, loss of consciousness from a head injury or from asphyxiation, and injuries from working in an enclosed space that cause hypothermia, heat illness, or need resuscitation or over 24 hours in hospital.


OVER-7-DAY INCAPACITATION


If an employee is away from work, or can't do their normal duties, for more than 7 consecutive days because of a work-related accident, that's reportable, and you've got 15 days from the accident to do it. Worth knowing: anything under 7 days doesn't need reporting to the HSE, but you still need to log it in your accident book, that requirement doesn't disappear just because the injury was minor.


MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC


If someone who doesn't work for you is injured because of your work activity and taken straight to hospital for treatment, that's reportable too, not just injuries to your own staff.


OCCUPATIONAL DISEASES


Certain diagnosed conditions linked to work are reportable, including carpal tunnel syndrome, hand-arm vibration syndrome, occupational dermatitis, occupational asthma, and tendonitis caused by repetitive work. These get missed more often than injuries do, because they develop slowly rather than happening in a single obvious moment.


DANGEROUS OCCURRENCES


Some incidents are reportable even when nobody was hurt, because of what could have happened. This covers things like near-miss gas incidents, and other events defined as arising from work that could realistically have caused serious harm to someone.


HOW TO ACTUALLY REPORT IT


Reports go through the HSE's RIDDOR online system. It's the responsible person, usually the employer, who's on the hook for reporting, not the injured employee, so this isn't something you can assume someone else is handling.


KEEPING YOUR SIDE OF IT IN ORDER


If you're not sure whether your current accident reporting process and record keeping would actually hold up, that's exactly the kind of thing worth checking before you need it rather than after. I've also put together a free UK landlord and small business compliance checklist covering this alongside the other checks people miss, you can grab that here: https://tonycarlyoncompliance.blogspot.com/p/free-checklist.html

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