Legal duties
The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR), place a legal duty on:
- employers;
- self-employed people;
- people in control of premises;
to report work-related deaths, major injuries, over seven days incapacity, work related diseases, and dangerous occurrences (near miss accidents).
For information on what is reportable visit RIDDOR.
All incidents can be reported 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 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 & ill health can be found at the link below.
Further information on the benefits of preventing accidents and ill-health, and how to estimate them, can be found at: Health and Safety Executive - Business Benefits.
Recording accidents
All businesses are advised to record all accidents to employees and non-employees occurring 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. Accident books are available from a variety of sources, including: Health and Safety Executive Books.
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.