RIDDOR is the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013, the law in Great Britain on reporting harm from work. It requires employers and people in control of premises to report certain work-related events to the enforcing authority, usually the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The reportable events are deaths, specified injuries (the serious injuries to workers listed in regulation 4(1), such as most fractures and amputations), over-seven-day injuries, injuries to non-workers taken to hospital for treatment, listed occupational diseases, dangerous occurrences and gas incidents. Other incidents are not reported to HSE, although many must still be recorded.
Northern Ireland has its own regulations, RIDDOR (NI) 1997. Reports there go to the Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland (HSENI).
Suppose that at 10am a warehouse supervisor steps down from a stepladder onto a pallet that was not there when he went up. He lands on his wrist. A colleague drives him to hospital, and at 2pm a doctor confirms a fracture.
Before 5pm the site manager has to decide three things: is this reportable, who has to report it, and by when. The answers are yes, the employer, and without delay. Any fracture diagnosed by a doctor, other than to a finger, thumb or toe, is a specified injury.
Change the injury and the answers change. A sprain and two weeks off would also be reportable, with 15 days to do it. Four days off would not, and would go in the accident book instead.
Who is the responsible person
Regulation 3 puts the duty on the responsible person, who for an injury to an employee is the employer. For a dangerous occurrence, it is the person in control of the premises where the incident happened. The same applies to an injury to a self-employed person or a member of the public. A self-employed person diagnosed with a reportable disease reports it themselves.
HSE updated its guidance on who should report on 7 May 2026. It says only the responsible person should make the report. Injured people and the public should not use the system.
A worker whose injury has not been reported should ask the employer first, then a union representative. After that, the worker can raise a concern with HSE. HSE is a prescribed person for health and safety concerns, and it says it will not disclose the worker's name to the employer.
What is reportable
Seven categories are reportable. For each, the first question is whether the event arose out of or in connection with work. A heart attack at a desk is not reportable just because it happened at work, but a fall from a ladder is.
Deaths
Regulation 6 covers the death of any person, worker or not. HSE's guidance says that, with the exception of suicides, the death of any person must be reported if it resulted from a work-related accident. Regulation 6(3) adds a later duty. If an employee dies within one year of the accident and the reportable injury was a cause of the death, the employer must notify the death without delay, even if the injury was never reported.
Specified injuries
Regulation 4(1) lists the injuries to workers that are reportable however long the person is off:
- a fracture diagnosed by a registered medical practitioner, other than to a finger, thumb or toe
- amputation of an arm, hand, finger, thumb, leg, foot or toe
- an injury likely to lead to permanent loss of sight or reduction in sight
- a crush injury to the head or torso causing damage to the brain or internal organs
- a burn or scald covering more than 10 percent of the body's surface, or significantly damaging the eyes, respiratory system or other vital organs
- any degree of scalping requiring hospital treatment
- loss of consciousness caused by head injury or asphyxia
- an injury arising from work in an enclosed space that leads to hypothermia or heat-induced illness, or requires resuscitation or admission to hospital for more than 24 hours
A suspected fracture is not a specified injury until a doctor has diagnosed it. A broken finger is not on the list. If it keeps the worker off for more than seven days, it is reportable under the next heading.
Over-seven-day injuries
Regulation 4(2) covers any injury that leaves a worker unable to do their routine work for more than seven consecutive days. The day of the accident does not count, so if the supervisor fell on Monday, the count starts on Tuesday. The injury becomes reportable if he still cannot do his normal job the following Tuesday. The report must then be made as soon as practicable and within 15 days of the accident.
Injuries to non-workers
Regulation 5 covers people who are not at work, such as customers, visitors, pupils, patients and passers-by. Their injury is reportable if they are taken from the scene to hospital for treatment. HSE's guidance adds the limit that matters most here. There is no need to report where someone goes to hospital purely as a precaution, even if an ambulance takes them.
Occupational diseases
Regulation 8 lists six diseases, each reportable on diagnosis where the work involves the exposure the regulation names. They are carpal tunnel syndrome, cramp of the hand or forearm, occupational dermatitis, hand-arm vibration syndrome, occupational asthma, and tendonitis or tenosynovitis of the hand or forearm.
Regulation 9 adds occupational cancers and regulation 10 adds diseases from biological agents. Symptoms alone do not trigger a report; the duty starts when the responsible person receives a diagnosis.
Dangerous occurrences
Regulation 7 and Schedule 2 list the near misses the law does report. There are 22 items under 13 headings that apply to all workplaces. Nobody has to be hurt for one of these to be reportable. The headings are:
- lifting equipment that collapses or overturns
- pressure-system failure
- contact with overhead lines over 200 volts
- electrical explosion or fire
- explosives
- biological agents
- radiation generators
- breathing apparatus
- diving
- scaffold collapse over five meters
- train collisions
- wells
- pipelines
Schedule 2 also covers structural collapse, explosion or fire, the release of flammable gas or liquid, and hazardous escapes.
Gas incidents
Regulation 11 covers the gas trade. A gas conveyor or a supplier of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) must notify HSE without delay of a death, loss of consciousness or hospital admission linked to its gas. It then has 14 days to make a report. A Gas Safe registered engineer who finds a dangerous gas fitting must report it within 14 days.
What is recorded but not reported
Three kinds of event belong in the organization's own records and nowhere else.
The first is the over-three-day injury. Regulation 12(1)(c) requires a record of any accident that leaves a worker unable to do routine work for more than three consecutive days. As with the seven-day count, the day of the accident is excluded. HSE says to record it in the accident book, not report it.
The second is every other injury at work, however small. Regulation 25(3) of the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1979 sets the duty. It applies to an employer with 10 or more people normally employed at the same premises, and to every mine, quarry and factory. They must keep an accessible accident record, paper or electronic, with each entry kept for three years.
Regulation 25(1) requires the employer to investigate any accident entered and record any discrepancy. The accident book is the internal record of all injuries. A RIDDOR report is the external report to HSE of the listed categories only.
The third is the near miss. No law requires an internal near-miss form, and near miss is not a RIDDOR term. The reportable equivalent is the dangerous occurrence.
RIDDOR deadlines
Schedule 1 sets the deadlines, and HSE restated them in its guidance on when to report on 11 February 2025.
| Event | Notify | Report received by |
|---|---|---|
| Death of any person from a work-related accident | Without delay | 10 days |
| Specified injury to a worker | Without delay | 10 days |
| Non-worker taken from the scene to hospital for treatment | Without delay | 10 days |
| Dangerous occurrence | Without delay | 10 days |
| Over-seven-day injury to a worker | As soon as practicable | 15 days from the accident |
| Occupational disease | On diagnosis | As soon as the responsible person receives the diagnosis |
| Death of an employee within one year, caused by a reportable injury | Without delay | Without delay |
| Gas incident (conveyor or LPG supplier) | Without delay | 14 days |
| Dangerous gas fitting (Gas Safe engineer) | Not required | 14 days |
| Over-three-day injury | Not reported | Accident book entry only |
How to report
Reports go to HSE online, on one of five forms: injury, dangerous occurrence, occupational disease, flammable gas incident and dangerous gas fitting. The form issues a reference number on submission, and a copy can be downloaded afterwards; keep both.
HSE's guidance of 7 May 2026 keeps a telephone line, 0345 300 9923, for fatal accidents and specified injuries to workers only. HSE also says that HSE and local authority enforcement officers are not an emergency service.
The injury form asks for:
- the notifier and the organization
- where it happened, with the local authority
- severity, and the injured person's employment status
- three yes or no answers: specified injury, hospital treatment, over seven days off
- injury type and body part
- date and time
- industry and activity
- accident type, with the height to the nearest meter for a fall
- work process and main factor
- free text on the activity, the events before the accident, environmental conditions, machinery or substances, actions taken and the injuries
- the injured person's details
Regulation 12(2) requires a record of every reportable event to be kept for at least three years. The downloaded form satisfies that, as long as someone can still find it three years later.
What happens if you do not report
Failing to report is a criminal offense. Section 33(1)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 makes it an offense to contravene health and safety regulations. RIDDOR is one of those regulations. The offense is triable either way, and on indictment the maximum is two years' imprisonment, an unlimited fine, or both.
In 2021 Paul Adams, trading as Surrey Conversions, was sent to prison for 24 weeks for failing to report an accident in which an excavator tipped and crushed a worker's leg, which was then amputated. He was also ordered to pay £2,033 in costs. The accident happened on 8 January 2019. HSE could only start investigating more than eight months later, after the worker complained, by which time key evidence was gone.
Prosecutions for the reporting failure on its own are rare. The more common consequence is the one in the Surrey Conversions case. The injured worker tells HSE, and the inspector who arrives investigates both the accident and why nobody mentioned it.
Under-reporting is widespread. On 7 January 2026 HSE said that employers substantially under-report non-fatal injuries. It put employer reporting of RIDDOR-defined non-fatal injuries to employees at around a half. An inspector who finds an unreported injury knows those figures, so do not expect it to be treated as an oversight.
The numbers
HSE published its statistics for 2024/25 on 20 November 2025. It recorded 124 worker deaths, and 59,219 injuries to employees were reported under RIDDOR. An estimated 680,000 workers self-reported a non-fatal injury to the Labour Force Survey.
An estimated 1.9 million workers were suffering from work-related ill health, 964,000 of them from stress, depression or anxiety. 40.1 million working days were lost to injury and ill health. HSE put the cost of workplace injury and ill health in 2023/24 at £22.9 billion.
The provisional figures for 2025/26, published on 1 July 2026, record 126 workers and 104 members of the public killed in work-related accidents. Construction and agriculture together accounted for over a third of worker deaths. The three largest causes were falls from height (31 deaths), being struck by a moving vehicle (24) and being struck by a moving object (21). The full 2025/26 release is scheduled for 19 November 2026.
What may change
HSE's consultation on reforming RIDDOR ran from 7 April to 7 July 2026. It made five proposals:
- Clarify the regulation 2 definitions of work-related, injury and routine work.
- Expand the regulation 8 list of reportable diseases from 6 to 19. This would reinstate asbestosis, pneumoconiosis and beryllium disease, and add noise-induced hearing loss, bronchiolitis obliterans, allergic rhinitis and contact urticaria.
- Accept diagnoses from registered healthcare practitioners other than doctors registered with the General Medical Council (GMC).
- Add four categories of dangerous occurrence to Schedule 2 and amend six.
- Simplify the online form.
No outcome had been published as of 6 November 2026. These are proposals, not law. Until the Regulations are amended, the lists on this page are the ones in force.
Near misses and why to record them
The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), the professional body for safety practitioners, defines a near miss as an event that did not involve injury or ill health on this occasion but reasonably could have under different circumstances. It defines an incident as an event that leads to or could have led to injury, occupational ill health, property damage or loss. HSE's guidance of 20 January 2026 calls dangerous occurrences incidents with the potential to cause harm. Schedule 2 is a closed list, but the near misses on a real site are not.
The usual argument for recording near misses is Heinrich's ratio of 300 near misses to 29 minor injuries to one serious one. Treat it as unproven.
The case that holds up is narrower: a near miss is evidence about the accident a site has not had yet, and nobody had to be hurt to produce it. A record of them is how you notice that the same pallet, ladder or blind corner keeps turning up.
A good near-miss record captures what the HSE injury form would have asked had someone been hurt:
- date, time and location
- who reported it and who was involved
- what happened and what could have happened
- equipment or substances
- immediate and underlying cause
- how severe it could have been
- immediate action
- corrective action with an owner and a date
- a sign-off
HSE's investigation guidance, HSG245, follows four steps for any incident: gathering information, analyzing it, identifying risk control measures, and the action plan and its implementation. A near-miss record earns its place when it reaches the fourth step and someone owns the fix.
How Confide handles incidents
For a site manager, the problem is usually that the facts arrive in pieces. Confide's Health & Safety module takes hazard, near-miss and incident reports through forms you set up for each team. If you turn on Echo, Confide's AI agent, it asks the person reporting about anything the form left blank.
The report, the evidence and the investigation notes sit in one case. Each follow-up action has an owner and a due date, and the review is recorded before the case closes. Compose can draft documents from what the case holds, and your team reviews, edits and approves each draft before anything goes to HSE.
Whether an event is reportable is still the responsible person's call. The module covers safety reporting, case management and follow-up. It does not replace inspection or training systems.
If you work on paper, the incident, near-miss and accident report form asks the same questions, and you can copy it.
RIDDOR FAQ
What does RIDDOR stand for and who must report?
RIDDOR is the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013, in force in Great Britain since 1 October 2013; Northern Ireland has its own RIDDOR (NI) 1997. The duty sits with the responsible person, which is the employer for an injured employee. For an injured member of the public or self-employed person, and for a dangerous occurrence, it is the person in control of the premises. A self-employed person reports their own diagnosed disease, and injured people should not report themselves.
Is a broken finger reportable under RIDDOR?
Not as a specified injury, because regulation 4(1) excludes fractures to a finger, thumb or toe. A broken finger is reportable only if the worker cannot do their routine work for more than seven consecutive days, not counting the day of the accident. It is then an over-seven-day injury, due within 15 days. Over three days off, record it in the accident book.
How long do I have to make a RIDDOR report?
For a death, a specified injury, a non-worker taken to hospital for treatment or a dangerous occurrence, notify HSE without delay. Make sure the report is received within 10 days.
For an over-seven-day injury, report as soon as practicable and within 15 days of the accident. For an occupational disease, report as soon as the diagnosis reaches you. Gas conveyors and suppliers notify without delay and then have 14 days to report.
Do I have to report a near miss?
Only if it is a dangerous occurrence listed in Schedule 2, such as the collapse of lifting equipment or a pressure-system failure. Others include contact with overhead lines over 200 volts, a scaffold collapse over five meters or a release of flammable gas. Those are notified without delay, with a report received within 10 days. Other near misses have no reporting duty or legal form, but recording them is how you find the accident you have not had yet.
What is the difference between the accident book and RIDDOR?
The accident book is the internal record of every injury at work, with each entry kept for three years. The Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1979 require one where 10 or more people are employed at the premises. A RIDDOR report is the external report to HSE of the listed categories only. An injury can be in both, but an over-three-day injury goes in the accident book alone.
Answer the three questions when the incident is logged
The site manager in the example had one afternoon to decide whether the fall was reportable, who had to report it and by when. The answers are in the Regulations. Finding them in the hours after an accident, with the pallet still on the floor, is where late reports start.
Check your own process against that day. Your incident record should ask the three questions as soon as the incident is logged. It should hold the deadline and stay open until the HSE reference number is in it. To run that check on a live case, try Confide's Health & Safety module on your next incident or near miss, from the first report to the signed-off corrective action.
