Legal duties
The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) 2013, places a legal duty on:
- employers;
- self-employed people;
- and people in control of premises.
They must report:
- work-related deaths;
- major injuries;
- over seven days incapacity;
- work related diseases;
- and dangerous occurrences (near miss accidents).
For details of what can be reported, visit: RIDDOR.
Note: All incidents can be reported online
To report a fatal or major injuries only:
- Phone the Incident Contact Centre: 0345 300 9923.
- Open Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 5pm.
It is easy to underestimate the costs of a workplace incident. In addition to the human suffering caused, other costs quickly accumulate including temporary staff cover, sick pay, investigation time, production delays, loss of contracts, legal costs, repairs to damaged products and plant and loss of business reputation. The benefits to business of preventing accidents and ill health can be found at the link below.
For more information on the benefits of preventing accidents/ill-health and how to estimate them, visit:
Recording accidents
All businesses are advised to record all accidents to employees and non-employees that occur at your work premises.
Data protection law requires all completed accident records to be secured so that persons other than those managing the records cannot view them.
An accident book is available for recording accidents that satisfies the requirements of:
- the health and safety legislation;
- and Department of Work and Pensions.
You can get an accident book from many places, which include:
Investigation of accidents
Businesses are advised to investigate accidents to identify action that can be taken to prevent similar incidents occurring again. It is important to look at the adequacy of your policies, procedures and systems as well as the immediate cause. The relevant risk assessments should be reviewed also to see if improvements can be made.
Environmental Health investigates all reported fatalities and serious accidents. An Officer may ring you for information regarding the accident or they may arrive at your premises unannounced. The Officer will explain what the investigation will involve and will inform you of the outcome. The outcome following an accident investigation usually involves giving businesses advice. If there is a blatant breach of the legislation then formal action will be taken.
In the event that someone who has been injured as a result of a work related accident wishes to pursue a compensation claim their legal advisor may wish to obtain a factual statement from us. This details the investigation and the findings. There is a charge for factual reports.