To file an HSE RIDDOR incident report, the person legally responsible for the workplace submits it through HSE’s online portal at notifications.hse.gov.uk/riddorforms, choosing the form that matches the incident (injury, disease, dangerous occurrence, or flammable gas or dangerous substance) and completing sections on the reporter, the location, the severity, the injury, and the circumstances of the accident. For most incidents the report must reach HSE within ten days of the event; fatalities and specified injuries should first be phoned in to the Incident Contact Centre.1Health and Safety Executive. When Do I Need to Report an Incident?
Confirm the Incident Is Reportable
RIDDOR does not cover every workplace injury. Five categories trigger a report: work-related deaths (except suicides), specified injuries to workers, over-seven-day incapacitation, diagnosed occupational diseases, and dangerous occurrences. Injuries to members of the public also count if the person is taken directly to hospital for treatment as a result of a work-related accident, though diagnostic tests such as X-rays alone are not treatment.2Health and Safety Executive. Types of Reportable Incidents
Specified injuries under Regulation 4 include fractures other than to fingers, thumbs, and toes; amputations of an arm, hand, finger, thumb, leg, foot, or toe; any injury likely to cause permanent sight loss or reduction; burns covering more than 10% of the body’s surface area or damaging the eyes, respiratory system, or other vital organs; crush injuries to the head or torso damaging the brain or internal organs; loss of consciousness from head injury or asphyxia; scalping requiring hospital treatment; and enclosed-space injuries leading to hypothermia, heat-induced illness, resuscitation, or hospital admission over 24 hours.3Health and Safety Executive. Specified, Reportable Injuries to Workers
Over-seven-day incapacitation means the worker cannot perform their normal duties for more than seven consecutive days after the accident, not counting the day of the accident itself. Weekends and rest days count.2Health and Safety Executive. Types of Reportable Incidents
Reportable occupational diseases require a doctor’s diagnosis linking the condition to the person’s work. The list includes carpal tunnel syndrome, occupational dermatitis, severe cramp of the hand or forearm, and occupational asthma, among others named in the regulations.2Health and Safety Executive. Types of Reportable Incidents
Dangerous occurrences are near-miss events set out in Schedule 2, covering things like the collapse or failure of lifting equipment, the failure of a pressure vessel with potential to cause death, scaffolding collapses above five metres, structural collapses involving more than five tonnes of material, fires or explosions suspending work for over 24 hours, and uncontrolled releases of hazardous substances.4Health and Safety Executive. Dangerous Occurrences
Who Files the Report
Only the “responsible person” should submit a RIDDOR report. Employees, witnesses, or members of the public are not the ones to file; the duty sits with whoever has legal control over the work or the premises.5Health and Safety Executive. RIDDOR Explained
- Employers report deaths, specified injuries, over-seven-day incapacitation, and occupational diseases involving their own employees, wherever the employees were working.
- Self-employed people report accidents on their own premises and any work-related disease a doctor diagnoses in them.
- People in control of premises report injuries to members of the public, injuries to self-employed workers on their site, and any dangerous occurrences.
Agency and temporary workers are a common source of confusion. If the employment agency is the legal employer, the agency has the reporting duties. Otherwise the duty falls on the end-user business that controls the premises where the accident happened.7Health and Safety Executive. Health and Safety for Gig Economy, Agency and Temporary Workers – Accident Reporting Hosting temporary staff and assuming the agency handles reporting can leave you in breach without realising it.
The Deadlines
The clock runs from the date of the incident or the diagnosis, not from when the report reaches you internally.
- Deaths, specified injuries, dangerous occurrences, and injuries to non-workers requiring hospital treatment: notify HSE without delay, and the report must be received within ten days of the incident.
- Over-seven-day incapacitation: report within fifteen days of the accident, using the online form.
- Occupational diseases: report as soon as you receive the diagnosis, using the online form.
The fifteen-day window for over-seven-day cases exists because you often will not know immediately whether a worker will be off for a full week. Track the absence from the day after the accident, and file promptly once day seven passes with the person still unable to do their normal work.
Filling Out the Online Form
Go to notifications.hse.gov.uk/riddorforms and pick the form matching your incident: injury, dangerous occurrence, disease, or flammable gas or dangerous substance incident.8Health and Safety Executive. RIDDOR Forms The injury form is the most commonly used, and its layout mirrors the others.
About You and Your Organisation
The first section asks for your name, job title, phone number, email address, and your organisation’s name and full postal address. This tells HSE who filed the report and where any follow-up should go.9Health and Safety Executive. Report of an Injury
Where the Accident Happened
If the accident occurred somewhere other than your organisation’s registered address, specify whether it happened at someone else’s premises or in a public place. Provide the address if known, or describe the location if there is no fixed address.9Health and Safety Executive. Report of an Injury
Severity and Employment Status
Indicate whether the person died, sustained a specified injury, or was incapacitated for more than seven days. The form asks the injured person’s employment status: your employee, self-employed, on work experience, a member of the public, a volunteer, or employed by someone else. This determines which reporting obligation applies and which enforcing authority receives the report.9Health and Safety Executive. Report of an Injury
Injury Details
Choose the type of injury from the dropdown and identify the affected part of the body. Keep the mechanism (a fall, being struck by an object) separate from the resulting injury (a fracture, a laceration).
About the Accident
This is the longest part. You will provide:
- The date, time, and geographic location (country, area, local authority).
- The department or part of the premises involved.
- Your main industry, activity, and sub-activity.
- The type of accident (fall from height, struck by moving object, contact with machinery, and so on).
- The work process and main factor involved.
- Free-text descriptions of what the person was doing, what led up to the accident, conditions at the time, and any machinery, equipment, or substances involved.
- The action you have taken to prevent similar accidents.
Write the free-text answers factually. State what happened, not what you think caused it or who was at fault. An HSE inspector will draw their own conclusions, and speculation on the form can create problems later.
Reporting by Phone
HSE takes phone reports only for fatal accidents and specified injuries. Call the Incident Contact Centre on 0345 300 9923, Monday to Friday, 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.10Health and Safety Executive. How Do I Report an Incident? For a death, call without delay rather than waiting to work through the online form. Even after phoning, you still need to submit the written report within ten days.1Health and Safety Executive. When Do I Need to Report an Incident? Over-seven-day injuries, diseases, and dangerous occurrences cannot be phoned in; those go through the online portal only.
After You Submit
On submission the portal shows a confirmation screen with the message “Thank you for submitting your RIDDOR form” and a RIDDOR reference number. A “Download PDF” button appears on that same screen. Click it immediately and save the PDF.11Health and Safety Executive. Submitting Your Form Online – FAQs
HSE no longer emails a copy of the submitted form, so the confirmation-screen download is your only chance to keep one. Navigate away without downloading and the form cannot be retrieved through the portal later.
Keeping the Records
Filing the report is not the end of the obligation. Under Regulation 12 of RIDDOR, you must keep a record of every reportable incident. Each entry must be retained for at least three years from the date it was made, and the record must be kept either at the place where the work is carried on or at your usual place of business.12Legislation.gov.uk. The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 – Regulation 12
The PDF you downloaded after submitting satisfies the record-keeping requirement, provided it contains the information specified in Schedule 1. If you already keep injury records for another purpose, such as an internal safety log, those records also count as long as they include the necessary details.
There is also a gap between what must be recorded and what must be reported. Accidents that incapacitate a worker for more than three consecutive days but seven or fewer do not need to be reported to HSE, but they do need to be recorded. An entry in your accident book under social security law is enough for these shorter-absence cases.2Health and Safety Executive. Types of Reportable Incidents
If You Operate in Northern Ireland
RIDDOR 2013 applies in England, Scotland, and Wales. Northern Ireland has its own regulations, the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1997, which still use a three-day incapacitation threshold rather than seven days, and reports go to the Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland (HSENI).13Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland. Report an Incident If you have sites on both sides of the border, apply the right rules to each.
Penalties for Not Reporting
Failing to report a RIDDOR incident or failing to keep the required records is a criminal offence under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. On summary conviction in a magistrates’ court, the penalty is a fine and up to six months’ imprisonment. On conviction on indictment in the Crown Court, the penalty can be an unlimited fine, up to two years’ imprisonment, or both.14Legislation.gov.uk. Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 – Section 33 In practice, HSE is more likely to prosecute a reporting failure when it surfaces alongside a serious underlying safety breach, with the missed report treated as evidence that the organisation was not taking its obligations seriously.