RIDDOR explained: what to report, and when

RIDDOR stands for the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013. It is a UK law, enforced by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), that places a legal duty on certain people to report specific serious workplace incidents within set timeframes. This guide explains who must report, what is reportable, and the deadlines that apply, in general terms. RIDDOR is detailed and is updated over time, so always check the current HSE guidance for your situation before deciding whether or how to report.

What is RIDDOR?

RIDDOR is the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013, a set of UK regulations that require the most serious workplace incidents to be reported to the relevant enforcing authority, which in most cases is the Health and Safety Executive. The regulations are made under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, and they sit within the wider framework of UK health and safety law covered in our guide to regulatory compliance.

RIDDOR is narrow but important. It does not require you to report every accident or every near miss. It applies only to defined categories of serious event. Within those categories, however, reporting is a legal duty, not a choice, and the deadlines are fixed. This combination of a specific scope and a hard obligation is why RIDDOR is one of the clearest tests of an organisation’s compliance.

Who has to report under RIDDOR?

The duty to report falls on the “responsible person”, not on the injured individual. Under RIDDOR the responsible person is generally the employer of the affected worker, a self-employed person, or the person who is in control of the premises where the work is carried out. In other words, the organisation running or controlling the work carries the legal obligation, not the person who was hurt.

This matters in practice. It means an organisation cannot rely on an injured worker to make a report, and it means the duty can rest on whoever controls a site, which is significant where contractors and multiple employers share a workplace. If you are unsure who the responsible person is in a particular arrangement, the HSE guidance sets out how the duty applies.

What is reportable under RIDDOR?

RIDDOR sets out specific categories of incident that must be reported. The broad categories are as follows. The descriptions are a general summary; the precise definitions and exemptions are set out by the HSE and should be checked against current guidance.

• Deaths. Work-related deaths must be reported.
• Specified injuries to workers. A defined list of the most serious injuries, summarised below.
• Over-seven-day injuries to workers. Injuries that are not specified injuries but that result in a worker being incapacitated for their normal work for more than seven consecutive days, not counting the day of the accident.
• Injuries to people not at work. For example members of the public, where they are taken to hospital for treatment in connection with a work-related incident, subject to the regulations’ conditions.
• Occupational diseases. Certain work-related diseases where there is a diagnosis and the work is a likely cause, such as some cases linked to particular hazardous exposures.
• Dangerous occurrences. Specified near-miss events that did not necessarily cause injury but had the potential to, such as certain equipment failures or releases.
• Gas incidents. Specific reporting duties apply to certain incidents involving flammable gas and gas fittings.

Specified injuries to workers

The specified injuries are a defined list of the most serious harms. According to the HSE, they include the following:

• Fractures, other than to fingers, thumbs and toes.
• Amputations.
• Any injury likely to lead to permanent loss of sight or reduction in sight.
• Any crush injury to the head or torso causing damage to the brain or internal organs.
• Serious burns, including scalding, covering more than 10 per cent of the body, or causing significant damage to the eyes, respiratory system or other vital organs.
• Any scalping requiring hospital treatment.
• Any loss of consciousness caused by head injury or asphyxia.
• Any other injury arising from working in an enclosed space that leads to hypothermia or heat-induced illness, or that requires resuscitation or admittance to hospital for more than 24 hours.

What are the RIDDOR timeframes?

RIDDOR sets specific deadlines, and they differ by the type of incident. In general terms, according to the HSE:

Reports are normally made through the HSE’s online reporting system, with a telephone service reserved for fatal and specified injury cases that need to be reported quickly. Because the exact mechanics and any exemptions can change, check the current HSE guidance before reporting.

What records must you keep?

Beyond reporting, RIDDOR also requires records to be kept. The responsible person must keep a record of any reportable injury, disease or dangerous occurrence, and of any over-seven-day injury. These records support compliance in two ways: they evidence that the duty was met, and they hold the detail an inspector may later ask to see. This is exactly where a reliable audit trail earns its place, because a contemporaneous, time-stamped record of the event and the report is far easier to stand behind than a reconstruction.

The practical challenge is that RIDDOR-reportable events are rare and serious, which is precisely when reporting must be fast and accurate. Capturing every incident and near miss consistently, through fast digital reporting, means that when a reportable event occurs the detail is already recorded and the deadline is easier to meet. Holding those records in one place, and reviewing them through data visualisation, also helps an organisation spot the patterns that precede serious incidents, which is the wider point of the whole compliance discipline. For the operational side of managing these duties, see Logincident’s approach to health and safety and compliance.

By Shannon Hamming, Communications and Community