30th May, 2023
The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) makes reporting some accidents at work a legal requirement. But what accidents do you need to report? In this post, we look at the types of deaths, accidents, injuries, diseases and events that are RIDDOR reportable at work.
RIDDOR applies to every business. RIDDOR stands for the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations, and it's a legal requirement.
If you have an accident, incident, illness, disease or other dangerous event, you should check if it needs reporting under RIDDOR. Deaths at work are always reportable.
RIDDOR reportable injuries, deaths, diseases and certain other events must be reported (usually online) within specific timeframes.
But not all accidents must be reported - but serious or significant accidents almost always should be. If it requires time off work, it will probably be reportable.
And it's not just injuries that you need to report. Sometimes you'll need to report events where no one got hurt.
Confused? Let's clear things up, and take a look at what's reportable under RIDDOR.
Ok, let's start with injuries since that's by far the biggest reportable category under RIDDOR. This section will cover the first four items on our list:
But first, for an injury to be reportable under RIDDOR, it must satisfy certain criteria.
Firstly, the injury must be the result of a RIDDOR reportable accident. This means that the accident causing the injury must be work-related.
Accidents outside of work are not reportable. For example, if a worker was injured at home and the injury resulted in over 7 days off work, it wouldn't be RIDDOR reportable because it didn't happen at work.
Under RIDDOR, an accident is defined as a separate, identifiable, unintended incident, which causes physical injury. An injury or illness resulting in time off work is only reportable if there is an identifiable event that caused the injury - for example lifting a heavy object, or an object striking someone.
Injuries or illnesses at work that are not the result of a workplace accident would also not be reportable under RIDDOR.
For example, if someone has a heart attack at work, it wouldn't be RIDDOR reportable - even if they die - if it's not the result of an accident at work.
Once you have established a work-related accident has resulted in an injury, there are then several types of reportable injuries under RIDDOR.
Where injuries are reportable, the HSE must be notified by the appropriate means, usually via the online form. In some cases, the report may be made via telephone. We cover how to report under RIDDOR in a separate post, but first, let's take a more detailed look at what injuries are reportable.
This one is fairly straightforward. Fatalities at work are almost always going to be RIDDOR reportable - providing they are the result of a workplace accident.
6.—(1) Where any person dies as a result of a work-related accident, the responsible person must follow the reporting procedure.
All deaths of workers and non-workers arising from a work-related accident are reportable under RIDDOR. This also includes deaths that occur within one year following an accident at work, where this is the cause of death.
For example, if someone hit their head at work, and is sent to the hospital, this might be reported as a major injury. If they die months later from their injury, then this would need to be reported again as a work-related fatality under RIDDOR.
Major injuries at work are reportable under RIDDOR. But how do you know exactly what is classed as a major injury?
Well, RIDDOR includes a list of specified injuries that need to be reported as major injuries. These types of injuries include fractures, amputations, serious burns and loss of consciousness.
RIDDOR requires 7-day injuries to be reported. This means that you need to report injuries resulting in a person being off work (or unable to perform their normal work duties) for more than 7 consecutive days.
(2) Where any person at work is incapacitated for routine work for more than seven consecutive days (excluding the day of the accident) because of an injury resulting from an accident arising out of or in connection with that work, the responsible person must send a report to the relevant enforcing authority in an approved manner as soon as practicable and in any event within 15 days of the accident.
You get a bit of extra time to report these types of injuries, as you are unlikely to know if someone will be off for seven days until seven days after the accident! However, you should report as soon as possible, for example, if they get a doctor's note earlier, or it's fairly obvious they will be off work for a while.
If a member of the public is injured as a result of your work activities and gets taken to the hospital for treatment, this needs to be reported under RIDDOR, if:
It doesn't need to be a major injury - when a member of the public is injured, reporting requirements apply to any type of injury - but only where they get taken to hospital for treatment.
This only applies where there is an injury, and the person is taken to the hospital to treat that injury. There is no need to report incidents where people are taken to hospital purely as a precaution when no injury is apparent.
Now we have discovered the types of injuries that need to be reported. But RIDDOR covers more than just the reporting on injuries. We have only covered RI (reporting of injuries) so far. Let's look at what else needs to be reported under RIDDOR.
Under RIDDOR, employers and self-employed people must report diagnoses of certain occupational diseases where these are likely to have been caused or made worse by their work.
Reportable diseases under RIDDOR are listed in regulations 8 and 9 of the regulations. Types of occupational diseases include occupational dermatitis, hand-arm vibration syndrome, occupational cancer etc.
So far, we've needed to report people getting hurt, either through injury or harm to their health.
But you might also need to report certain events where no one suffered any harm. We call these dangerous occurrences.
Several types of dangerous occurrences require reporting in circumstances where the incident has the potential to cause injury or death, such as the collapse of lifting equipment or scaffolding, unintentional explosions, accidental release of hazardous substances or gas, accidental contact with overhead power lines etc.
Like a near-miss, no one got hurt - but they could have been.
Dangerous occurrences include:
Some extra dangerous occurrences need to be reported when working in a mine, quarry, railway and transport systems and offshore workplaces. Make sure you take a look at schedule 2 of the RIDDOR regulations if this applies to you.
For more information on RIDDOR, you can take our RIDDOR eLearning course. On successful completion of the course, you can download a certificate for your training records.
This article was written by Emma at HASpod. Emma has over 10 years experience in health and safety and BSc (Hons) Construction Management. She is NEBOSH qualified and Tech IOSH.
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