The riddle of RIDDOR

RIDDOR regulations place a positive duty on employers and persons in control of work premises to report specific workplace health and safety incidents to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). On the face of it this seems pretty simple doesn’t it? The reality is that RIDDOR is far from simple. I look at the RIDDOR regulations more often than any other piece of legislation, and the reason for this is that they are not simple, they can be confusing and getting it wrong can be highly problematic.

To start, let’s look at the purpose of RIDDOR - it is to ensure that relevant duty holders report potential breaches of health and safety legislation to the HSE, so that the HSE can then decide whether to launch an investigation to identify if there has been a material breach of health and safety duties. A material breach of health and safety duty is anything, which in the opinion of an HSE inspector, requires that inspector to write to the duty holder. The bar is therefore very low. In essence, by application of RIDDOR, a duty holder is compelled to raise potential wrongdoing with the primary health and safety regulator, where failure to do so can lead to criminal prosecution.

Who are relevant duty holders?

These are employers, the self-employed, and any person (individual or organisation) that has control of work premises when a reportable work-related incident has occurred. Usually, the person with control will be the employer or self-employed person, but if not, this might apply to a landlord or facilities management company, where the premises are used as a non-domestic workplace.

What is reportable? 

• All accidents that are work-related and result in a specified injury to a worker.
• The HSE defines an accident as “a type of incident which is separate, identifiable, unintended and causes physical injury”. 
• ‘Work-related’ means an accident arising out of or in connection with work. What is and is not work-related is often a very difficult question to answer. In the section “Is it work-related” set out below, I look at some specific instances and whether they would require reporting.  
• Specified work-related injuries include: fractured bones except fingers, toes and thumbs, amputations of an arm, hand, finger, thumb, leg, foot or toe, loss of sight, crush injury to the head or torso, any burn that covers a designated percentage of the whole body (10%) or the area of the body affected or causes significant damage to eyes, the respiratory system or other vital organs (‘significant’ is not defined), loss of consciousness caused by a head injury or asphyxia, any degree of scalping and injuries resulting from working in an enclosed space.
• Injuries to workers that result in the injured person not being able to undertake their normal work duties for more than seven consecutive days, 
• Accidents involving non-workers, where they involve work activity, resulting in an injury and the non-worker is taken directly from the scene of the accident to hospital for treatment to that injury. However, there is no need to report where the non-worker is taken to hospital purely as a precaution, when no injury is apparent.
• All work-related fatalities to employees and non-employees.
• Diagnosed (by a doctor) cases of reportable occupational diseases like carpal tunnel syndrome, cramp, occupational dermatitis, hand-arm vibration, occupational asthma, and tendonitis or tenosynovitis.
• Occupational cancers and diseases linked to biological agents.
• Dangerous occurrences: these are occurrences that arise out of or in connection with work and could risk harm to others. There is a whole Schedule of information relating to dangerous occurrences in the Regulations.

Is it work-related?

Trying to work out whether the accident is work-related can be a particular challenge. For example, what if a student is injured in the workplace whilst undertaking a work placement? The HSE confirms that even though the student is not an employee, they are to be treated as an employee for reporting purposes and the employer would be expected to make a report if required. What if one of your drivers out on a delivery was seriously injured in a crash with another vehicle? The HSE suggests that this would not be reportable because the police would be the primary investigating authority as the accident happened on a public road. What if two customers are injured and taken to hospital for treatment when their cars collided in a supermarket car park? The HSE say that although this happened on work premises (the car park), the accident itself was not work-related, and therefore not  reportable. Consider a situation in a restaurant: a customer is accidentally scalded whilst being served hot soup by a member of staff. The customer is taken to hospital in an ambulance and required treatment for the burns sustained - is this reportable? Yes, because that accident arose from a work-activity - serving the soup. A sub-contractor on a construction site sustains an injury that means they are off work for more than seven days. Is this reportable, and if so, by whom? Yes it is reportable, and the report should come from the principal contractor or the organisation that has control of the site. Finally, a member of the public trips on your business premises, but says they are unhurt. Later you are told that they went to their G.P. the next day and were referred to hospital. Is this reportable? No, the injured person must go to hospital directly from the workplace where the accident happened. A GP’s clinic or walk-in centre is not a hospital.

When is it reportable?

The HSE confirms that a relevant incident must be notified  to the HSE without delay and then reported formally within 10 days of the incident. It is in effect a two-stage process: notification first, then formal report. 

In the context of RIDDOR, notifying is the act of informing the enforcing authority (like the Health and Safety Executive) that a reportable incident has occurred, while reporting is the formal submission of the required details for that incident. The terms are often used interchangeably, but in practice, "notifying" refers to the initial communication (often "without delay"), and "reporting" refers to the completion of the full notification, which includes submitting all the required details. All incidents can be reported to the HSE online but a telephone service remains for reporting fatal and major injuries only - call the Incident Contact Centre on 0345 300 9923 (opening hours Monday to Friday 8.30 am to 5 pm). It is worth noting that all RIDDOR reports will go to the HSE in the first instance and then be triaged out to a local authority if that is the relevant health and safety regulator for the workplace involved. 

Who needs to make the report? 

This is typically the employer of the injured person, some self-employed individuals or the person in control of the work premises where the reportable incident occurred.  

When you might not need to make a report?

One important exception to reporting under RIDDOR exists in relation to the movement of vehicles on a road. The duty to report under RIDDOR would not usually apply in a road traffic incident on the public road, as the police would be the primary authority with responsibility to enforce road traffic legislation. However, in certain circumstances, if injury or death arises out of work on or alongside a road, or from loading and unloading a vehicle, then this may be reportable if work-related. 

Key questions

What therefore are the key questions a responsible person needs to ask themselves before deciding whether a RIDDOR report is required?

1. Was there an identifiable and unintended incident that has caused physical injury?
2. Were the circumstances of that accident / incident work-related?
3. Did that accident  or incident cause injury to an employee or non-employee?
4. What is the nature of the injury or injuries sustained?
5. If an employee, was it a specified injury or did it result in the employee being unable to perform their normal work duties for more than seven days?
6. If a non-employee, did that injury result on that non-employee being taken immediately to hospital, where they received treatment for the injury sustained?
7. Did the accident occur on a road or highway to which the pubic had access?
8. Were there work-related activities going on at the time of the road accident and did those involve work on the fabric of the road or verges or loading or unloading of a vehicle?
9. Has a doctor provided a written diagnosis of an occupational disease?
10. Could the incident have had a high potential to cause death or serious injury?
11. If the incident could have caused death or serious injury, does it fall within Schedule 2 of the RIDDOR regulations (i.e. dangerous occurrences)?

In summary therefore:

• The RIDDOR regulations are far from simple and require careful analysis of the facts.
• You may not have enough information at the very outset to properly determine whether a formal report is required or not. More information is always going to be best and this is why the Regulations give you time to gather, reflect and then act.
• Against the backdrop that failure to report when required to do so is a criminal offence, taking advice early (if only to confirm your own evaluation) is always going to be a benefit.