RIDDOR Reporting Procedures for UK Workplaces

Clear RIDDOR reporting procedures for UK sites: identify reportable incidents, meet deadlines, protect evidence and maintain audit-ready records every day.

A serious incident creates two pressures at once: protect people immediately, then establish the facts without losing the evidence. RIDDOR reporting procedures give UK dutyholders a legal route for notifying the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) or the relevant enforcing authority, but the report is only one part of effective incident control. For facilities and compliance teams, the real test is whether the organisation can show what happened, what it did, who made each decision and how recurrence will be prevented.

What RIDDOR requires - and what it does not

RIDDOR is the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013. It places the reporting duty on the responsible person, usually the employer, a self-employed person or the person in control of work premises. In practice, that responsibility needs named ownership, even where a site manager, health and safety lead or central compliance team prepares the submission.

A RIDDOR report is not an admission of liability. It is also not a substitute for an internal investigation, first aid record, accident book entry, insurance notification or safeguarding process. Each has a different purpose. Treating the online report as the whole response is how evidence becomes fragmented and corrective action drifts.

The key operational question is not simply, “Was someone hurt?” It is whether the event meets a specific RIDDOR reporting threshold. Many workplace injuries need recording and investigation but are not RIDDOR-reportable. Equally, a dangerous occurrence may be reportable even if nobody was injured.

Which incidents are reportable under RIDDOR?

The exact classification matters. Build it into the incident triage process rather than relying on someone’s memory during a difficult shift.

Fatalities and specified injuries

Deaths arising from a work-related accident must be reported, excluding deaths by suicide. Specified injuries to workers also require prompt reporting. These include fractures other than to fingers, thumbs and toes; amputations; injuries likely to cause permanent loss or reduction of sight; crush injuries to the head or torso causing damage to the brain or internal organs; serious burns; scalping requiring hospital treatment; loss of consciousness caused by head injury or asphyxia; and injuries arising from work in an enclosed space that lead to hypothermia, heat-induced illness, resuscitation or hospital admission for more than 24 hours.

The detail matters. A broken finger is not a specified injury, while a fracture of the wrist is. A hospital visit alone does not automatically make an injury reportable. Teams should capture the clinical description, mechanism of injury and anticipated absence, then assess the threshold against the regulations.

Over-seven-day injuries

An injury to a worker is reportable when it is work-related and keeps them away from their normal work, or unable to do their normal work, for more than seven consecutive days. The day of the accident does not count, but weekends, rest days and holidays do.

This category is often missed because it can only become clear after the initial incident. A practical control is to set an absence review task at day three and day seven, with responsibility shared between line management, HR and the compliance owner. Do not assume a fit note or a return to restricted duties settles the position. The question is whether the person could carry out their normal work.

Injuries to non-workers

Where a member of the public, visitor, service user, contractor not under your direct employment or another non-worker is injured because of a work-related accident and is taken directly to hospital for treatment, the incident may be reportable. The emphasis is on the work-related cause and treatment. A precautionary visit to hospital is not necessarily enough, but the organisation must establish the facts promptly.

Occupational diseases and dangerous occurrences

Certain diagnosed occupational diseases are reportable when received by a worker and linked to their work. These can include conditions such as carpal tunnel syndrome, severe cramp, occupational dermatitis, hand-arm vibration syndrome, occupational asthma and tendon-related injuries, depending on the work activity and diagnosis.

Dangerous occurrences are specified near misses with serious potential. Examples relevant to managed sites can include the collapse or partial collapse of scaffolding, structural failure, unintended collapse of a lifting operation, electrical short circuits or overloads causing fire or explosion, and certain releases of hazardous substances. The categories are technical, so a competent review is sensible where the event is borderline.

A controlled RIDDOR reporting procedure

A dependable procedure starts before the report form. It should be clear enough for a duty manager to follow at 2am and structured enough for a compliance lead to defend months later.

1. Make the area safe and preserve the scene

Provide first aid, call emergency services where required and remove immediate danger. Then prevent unnecessary disturbance. Isolate defective equipment, retain relevant permits and work records, identify CCTV retention requirements, and take time-stamped photographs where appropriate.

Preservation is not about blame. It protects the integrity of the investigation. A contractor may remove equipment, a cleaner may clear a spill, or CCTV may overwrite within days. Those routine actions can erase the facts needed to understand the event.

2. Record the initial facts once

Create one incident record that captures the date, time, location, people involved, witnesses, activity underway, injury or event description, immediate actions and supporting evidence. Avoid asking teams to re-enter the same account into separate accident, facilities, HR and contractor trackers.

Learn MoreIncidents & Accident ManagementHow an incident is captured against the people and place involved, then followed through investigation to a documented close.

The initial record should distinguish fact from opinion. “Water was visible on the entrance mat at 09:10” is evidence. “The cleaner failed to do their job” is a conclusion that needs testing. That discipline improves reporting quality and makes later investigation more credible.

3. Triage against the RIDDOR threshold

The responsible person or delegated competent reviewer should assess work-relatedness, incident type, injury outcome and timing. For a facilities team, this often requires information from several sources: contractor attendance logs, maintenance history, risk assessments, training records, shift rosters and absence data.

Where there is uncertainty, seek competent health and safety advice quickly. The trade-off is clear: rushing a poorly evidenced report can create confusion, but waiting for every investigative answer can miss a statutory deadline. Report the known facts within the required timeframe and continue the investigation afterwards.

4. Notify the enforcing authority within the deadline

Fatalities and specified injuries must be reported without delay. Over-seven-day injuries must be reported within 15 days of the accident. Occupational diseases should be reported as soon as the responsible person receives a diagnosis from a medical practitioner, while dangerous occurrences are reportable without delay.

Use the HSE reporting route applicable to the incident and retain the submission confirmation. For fatalities and specified injuries, make immediate contact using the HSE’s designated reporting arrangements, then ensure the formal record is complete. Do not delegate this step informally to a contractor unless roles and authority are explicitly agreed. The dutyholder remains accountable for ensuring the report is made.

5. Investigate causes and assign corrective actions

A RIDDOR report states what happened. An investigation should establish why the controls did not work. Look beyond the immediate act or condition. Was the risk assessment current? Had the inspection been missed? Was planned maintenance overdue? Did the contractor receive the right site information? Were procedures available at the point of work, and was training recorded?

Actions need a clear owner, due date and verification step. “Remind staff” is rarely a sufficient corrective action on its own. A stronger outcome might be a revised traffic-management control, a scheduled inspection, a competency check, or an engineering safeguard supported by evidence of completion.

Learn MoreIssue Reporting & RequestsHow a failed control becomes an assigned action, with evidence of completion staying on the record.

Keeping evidence ready for inspection

RIDDOR records must be retained for at least three years. Operationally, retaining the report alone is not enough. You should be able to retrieve the incident record, report reference, witness accounts, photographs, risk assessments, inspection and maintenance history, training evidence, contractor documents, investigation findings and closed actions as one connected case file.

This is particularly important across multi-site estates. A slip in one location may expose a common failure in cleaning specifications, entrance matting, drainage maintenance or inspection frequency across the portfolio. Central visibility lets teams identify that pattern before the next incident becomes reportable.

Learn MorePremises & Asset ManagementHow sites, rooms and assets sit in one estate structure, so the incident record points at the place and kit involved.

CalmCompliance supports this approach by connecting incidents to the live records behind them: the location, asset, risk assessment, inspection, person, contractor and follow-up action. The evidence assembles around the work, rather than being reconstructed from inboxes and spreadsheets after an event.

Common failures that undermine a defensible response

The most frequent failure is delayed escalation. A line manager may log an injury as minor, only for the absence threshold to be reached a week later with no review trigger in place. The second is misclassification, particularly where a hospital visit or contractor injury is assumed to be automatically reportable or automatically excluded.

Another weakness is closing the incident once the external report is submitted. That leaves overdue actions, recurring risks and no proof that lessons were applied. Finally, organisations often have the right documents but cannot connect them quickly. During an inspection or claim, scattered evidence looks much like missing evidence.

A good procedure creates calm under pressure because it makes the next action obvious. Name the responsible person, define escalation routes, automate absence and action reviews, and keep the incident evidence connected to the controls that should have prevented it. When a serious event occurs, your team should not be searching for the story. It should already be there.