What RIDDOR actually makes you report
Five things trigger a report under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013: a death, a specified injury from Schedule 1, an over-seven-day injury to a worker, one of the listed occupational diseases, and a dangerous occurrence from Schedule 2. There's a sixth that catches people out on refurb and fit-out jobs: an injury to a member of the public that means they're taken from the scene to hospital for treatment.
The duty sits with the "responsible person". For an employee that's normally their employer. For someone self-employed working on premises under someone else's control, it's whoever controls the premises, which on most sites means the principal contractor. That split matters because the labour-only bricklayer who breaks his wrist on your scaffold is your report to make, not his, even though he invoices you.
Two things RIDDOR is not. It's not an admission that you did anything wrong, and it's not a substitute for your own accident investigation. HSE's guidance on types of reportable incidents is clear that the trigger is a work-related accident, meaning the way the work was organised, carried out or supervised played a part. Someone who has a heart attack at the mess hut with no work cause behind it isn't a RIDDOR report.
RIDDOR reporting is separate from notifying a project itself, so if you're not sure where the job stands under CDM 2015, check whether the job needs an F10 notification before work starts.
The specified injuries list, in plain words
Schedule 1 of RIDDOR 2013 gives eight categories of specified injury, and regulation 4 says these must be notified without delay when they happen to a worker. First up, any fracture other than to fingers, thumbs or toes. So a broken wrist counts, a broken finger doesn't. Second, amputation of an arm, hand, finger, thumb, leg, foot or toe. Fingers and toes are excluded from the fracture line but not from the amputation line, which trips people up constantly.
Third is permanent loss of sight or a permanent reduction in sight, in one eye or both. Fourth, crush injuries to the head or torso that cause damage to the brain or to internal organs. A crushed foot under a kerb isn't in this category, though it may well end up reportable as an over-seven-day injury.
Fifth, serious burns, and this includes scalds. The threshold is burns covering more than ten per cent of the body surface, or burns causing significant damage to the eyes, respiratory system or other vital organs. Steam from a flushed heating system to the face is the classic one. Sixth, any scalping that needs hospital treatment. Long hair, an unguarded drill, a bench-mounted grinder.
Seventh, loss of consciousness caused by a head injury or by asphyxia. Note the cause is part of the test. Fainting at the sight of blood is not this. Being knocked out by a falling scaffold clip is.
Eighth is the enclosed-space category, and it's the widest one. Any other injury arising from working in an enclosed space that leads to hypothermia or a heat-induced illness, or that requires resuscitation, or that requires admittance to hospital for more than 24 hours. A man pulled out of a manhole, given oxygen and kept in overnight for observation is a specified injury even if the diagnosis notes say nothing dramatic. Tanks, chambers, ducts, unventilated basements, the inside of a plant room in July: all enclosed spaces for this purpose.
When an inspector asks what conditions were like on the day, a site diary you actually keep up is worth more than anything you write afterwards.
Over-seven-day injuries and how to count the days
Regulation 4 of RIDDOR 2013 requires a report where a worker is away from work or unable to do the full range of their normal duties for more than seven consecutive days as a result of a work-related accident. More than seven, so day eight is where it bites.
Counting is where the errors live. You do not count the day of the accident itself. You do count every day after it, including weekends, bank holidays, rest days and days the person wouldn't have been on site anyway. A groundworker who twists a knee on the Friday afternoon and is signed off until the following Monday week has been incapacitated for ten days, and it's reportable, even though he only lost four shifts.
"Unable to do their normal work" is broader than "off sick". If your steel fixer comes back on light duties, sweeping and stacking, because he can't lift, he's still incapacitated for RIDDOR purposes. Plenty of contractors report nothing because the lad turned up every day, and that's the wrong reading.
There's a second, quieter duty at three days. Where an accident causes a worker to be incapacitated for more than three consecutive days, regulation 12 of RIDDOR 2013 requires you to keep a record, even though nothing goes to HSE. In practice, keep a record of everything and let the record decide the report. The report deadline for an over-seven-day injury is 15 days from the date of the accident, which sounds generous until the sick note arrives on day 12 and nobody tells the office.
Records of toolbox talks are usually near the top of the list an investigating inspector asks for, particularly on manual handling, buried services and work at height.
Reportable occupational diseases
Diseases work differently from injuries. Under regulations 8 and 9 of RIDDOR 2013, the trigger is not the symptoms appearing, it's you receiving a written diagnosis from a doctor, and the disease has to be linked to the work the person actually does.
The list that matters on construction sites is short and predictable. Carpal tunnel syndrome and hand-arm vibration syndrome where the person's work involves regular use of percussive or vibrating tools, so breakers, SDS drills, whackers, disc cutters, chainsaws. Tendonitis or tenosynovitis of the hand or forearm from repetitive work. Cramp of the hand or forearm from repetitive movement. Occupational dermatitis where the work involves a known skin sensitiser or irritant, which on a building site usually means wet cement, epoxies, resins, cutting oils or solvents. Occupational asthma from a respiratory sensitiser, think isocyanate paints and some hardwood dusts. Then any occupational cancer, and any disease attributed to work with a biological agent.
Regulation 9 covers cancers and diseases arising from work with carcinogens, mutagens or biological agents specifically. Asbestos-related disease is the one every refurbishment contractor should assume will eventually land on a former employee's diagnosis letter.
Honest observation: disease reporting is under-done across the industry, and it's mostly because the diagnosis letter goes to the worker's GP and the worker never mentions it. If a joiner hands you a note saying he's been diagnosed with HAVS, that's the moment your duty starts, and it's also the moment to look hard at your vibration exposure figures rather than filing the letter.
If you're building out your health and safety file from scratch, work through the other guides on site health and safety duties alongside this one.
Dangerous occurrences: the near misses you still have to report
Schedule 2 of RIDDOR 2013 lists dangerous occurrences, and the whole point of them is that nobody has to be hurt. The event itself is the report. Get this wrong and you're the contractor explaining to an inspector why a crane went over on Tuesday and HSE heard about it from a neighbour on Thursday.
The ones that come up on construction work, in rough order of frequency. Collapse, overturning or failure of any load-bearing part of lifting equipment: tower cranes, mobile cranes, MEWPs, gin wheels, telehandlers, passenger and goods hoists. Scaffold collapse, where the reportable event is the complete or partial collapse of scaffolding more than five metres high, or any scaffold erected near water where someone could drown. Structural collapse, meaning the unintended collapse of any structure or part of one involving more than five tonnes of material, or any floor or wall of a building used as a workplace, or any falsework.
Service strikes split by service. Plant or equipment coming into contact with an overhead electric line carrying more than 200 volts, or close enough to cause a flashover, is a dangerous occurrence in its own right. An underground electrical short circuit or overload causing fire or explosion is reportable where it either stops the plant for over 24 hours or had the clear potential to kill. Hit a gas main and you're into the uncontrolled release of a flammable gas, and the gas supplier has its own duties on top of yours. My rule of thumb after a strike: assume reportable, check HSE's guidance on types of reportable incidents, then decide.
Also on the list and worth knowing: failure of any closed vessel or pipework under pressure, unintentional ignition or explosion of explosives, the malfunction of breathing apparatus while in use or under test, any accidental release of a biological agent likely to cause severe human illness, and any fire or explosion that stops normal work for more than 24 hours. That last one catches a lot of temporary heating and hot works incidents.
Timescales: the list to pin up in the site office
Death of a worker or a non-worker from a work-related accident: notify HSE without delay by telephone through the incident contact centre, then send the full report within 10 days of the accident. Where a worker dies of an injury more than 24 hours after the accident but within a year, RIDDOR 2013 requires a further written report as soon as you learn of the death, even if you already reported the injury.
Specified injury from Schedule 1 to a worker: notify without delay, report within 10 days. Telephone is the sensible route for these because the online form isn't "without delay" if it's sitting in someone's drafts.
Injury to a member of the public taken from the scene to hospital for treatment: report within 10 days. Precautionary trips to hospital where no injury is apparent are not reportable, per HSE's guidance.
Over-seven-day incapacitation of a worker: report within 15 days of the accident, counting from the day after it. Over-three-day incapacitation: no report, but a record under regulation 12. Dangerous occurrence from Schedule 2: report within 10 days. Occupational disease under regulations 8 and 9: report as soon as reasonably practicable after you get the written diagnosis, and treat 10 days as your working target.
Gas has its own clocks. A gas conveyor or supplier reporting a gas incident has 14 days, and a registered gas engineer reporting a dangerous gas fitting has 14 days from becoming aware, so check the current HSE guidance if that's your world rather than relying on the general injury deadlines.
Records last three years. Regulation 12 of RIDDOR 2013 requires records of reportable incidents to be kept for at least three years from the date they were made, and keeping the accident book properly is the cheapest insurance policy on the job.
How to report, and what happens next
Everything except fatalities and specified injuries goes through HSE's online forms, and each incident type has its own form (F2508 for injuries and dangerous occurrences, F2508A for diseases). You get a copy of the submission by email. Save it. That email is your evidence you reported inside the deadline, and it's the first thing a client or a CHAS-style assessor will ask for if the incident ever comes up in a prequalification.
Fatalities and specified injuries should go by phone to the incident contact centre during office hours, because "without delay" and "I'll do the form Monday" are not the same thing.
What happens next depends on severity. Most over-seven-day reports generate nothing at all. Specified injuries may generate a call, a request for your risk assessment and method statement, or a visit. Deaths and serious dangerous occurrences generate an investigation, and the paperwork the inspector asks for will be the paperwork that existed on the day, not the version you tidied up afterwards. Site diary, inspection records, scaffold handover certificates, the register of who had which toolbox talk, plant inspection reports.
One last thing worth saying plainly. Reporting late is common, and it's usually not dishonesty, it's a supervisor who thought the office knew and an office that thought the supervisor was handling it. Name one person per project who owns RIDDOR decisions, write their name on the accident book, and make the rule that every injury gets logged the same day whether or not anyone thinks it's reportable.
Questions people ask
- Is a broken finger RIDDOR reportable?
- Not as a specified injury. Schedule 1 of RIDDOR 2013 excludes fractures to fingers, thumbs and toes from the fracture category. It can still become reportable if it keeps the worker off their normal duties for more than seven consecutive days, and an amputated finger is always a specified injury.
- Do weekends count towards the seven days?
- Yes. You exclude the day of the accident and then count every consecutive calendar day after it, including weekends, bank holidays and days the person wasn't rostered to work. An accident on a Friday with a return the Monday after next is more than seven days and reportable within 15 days of the accident.
- Who makes the report when a subcontractor is injured?
- Usually the injured person's employer. Where someone is genuinely self-employed and working on premises controlled by someone else, the duty falls on whoever controls those premises, which on most construction projects is the principal contractor. Agree this in writing at pre-start so nobody assumes the other party is doing it.
- Is a cable strike always reportable?
- No, but many are. Contact with an overhead line above 200 volts is a dangerous occurrence under Schedule 2 of RIDDOR 2013. An underground strike causing a short circuit with fire or explosion is reportable if it stopped the plant for over 24 hours or clearly could have killed someone. Check HSE's guidance on types of reportable incidents on each one rather than working from memory.
- Does reporting under RIDDOR admit liability?
- No. A RIDDOR report is a statutory notification to HSE about what happened, not a legal admission, and HSE says as much in its guidance. Failing to report when RIDDOR 2013 requires it is the offence, and it looks far worse than the original incident ever did.
The short version
Three routes make an injury reportable under RIDDOR 2013: death, a specified injury from Schedule 1 (fractures other than fingers and toes, amputations, permanent sight loss, crush injuries to head or torso, serious burns, scalpings needing hospital treatment, unconsciousness from head injury or asphyxia, and enclosed-space injuries needing resuscitation or over 24 hours in hospital), or more than seven consecutive days off normal duties.
Deaths and specified injuries: notify without delay, report within 10 days. Over-seven-day injuries: 15 days, counting from the day after the accident and including weekends. Over three days: record it under regulation 12 and keep records three years.
Diseases start the clock on written diagnosis. Dangerous occurrences, including scaffold and structural collapse, crane overturn and overhead line contact, are reportable with nobody hurt.