By studying the reports, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) can identify common occurrences and trends, and develop its enforcement strategy accordingly. Ideally, by specifying these historically dangerous situations, the HSE is encouraging employers to pay particular attention to these hazards and ensure they avoid, or manage them through risk assessment. The aim is to reduce injuries, illnesses or incidents.

The information enables reflection on the events that have occurred to ensure people are kept safe at work by learning lessons.

RIDDOR regulations relate to ‘responsible’ persons reporting incidents and injuries. In this case, ‘responsible’ is generally taken to mean employers, but it could also mean managers, the self-employed and people in control of premises.

These people should report any of the following:

• Fatal injuries
• Specified non-fatal injuries
• Occupational diseases
• Dangerous occurrences (also referred to as ‘near misses’)
• Incidents resulting in an employee being away from work for seven days or more
• Incidents involving injured members of the public being taken to hospital
• Incidents involving gases where people have been taken to hospital

If you are an employee (or representative) or a member of the public wishing to report an incident about which you have concerns, please refer to HSE’s advice or contact Winchester City Council’s Public Protection Service (see below for contact details).

The first thing to do is to ensure that there is no immediate danger to employees or any other person. Next, make sure the affected person receives appropriate medical attention, which will often be first aid delivered by the organisation’s qualified first aider. If the incident has been discovered by an employee, they should then report it to a manager or supervisor.

The company needs to record details of the incident (and indeed any dangerous occurrence, often called ‘near misses’) so that any trends or commonality can be spotted. This should also be supported by an investigation into what happened, all of which will help you learn lessons and take measures to reduce the likelihood of a repeat incident.

And of course, you’ll need to complete a RIDDOR report where appropriate.

You’ll need to fill out the correct form on the HSE website, where all of the options are clearly highlighted.

All incidents can be reported online but a telephone service is also provided for reporting fatal/specified incidents only - call the Incident Contact Centre on 0345 300 9923 (opening hours Monday to Friday 8.30 am to 5 pm).

It’s important to note that RIDDOR incidents must be reported within 10 days, or within 15 if the incident leads to more than seven days’ absence from work. All reported RIDDOR incidents should be recorded, so it is recommended that you download your RIDDOR report for your records and keep it for at least three years, but ideally six years in case it’s needed for any legal procedures.

The list of what to report is fairly self-explanatory, but there are some sections which are worth taking a more detailed look at to clarify some points.

Death: all work-related deaths (employee and non-employee) must be reported. This includes those that occur up to one year after the accident if that accident was the cause of death. Suicide and self-harm are not reportable.

Injuries: RIDDOR 2013 specifies 8 types of injury that must be reported, and they can be summarised as:

• Fractures (excluding thumbs, fingers and toes)
• Amputation of an arm, hand, finger, thumb, leg, foot or toe
• Any injury likely to lead to permanent loss of sight or reduction in sight in one or both eyes
• Any crush injury to the head or torso, causing damage to the brain or internal organs
• Burn or scalding injury – more specific guidance on this is provided here
• Any scalping of the skin which requires hospital treatment
• Unconsciousness caused by head injury or asphyxiation
• Injury in an enclosed space which leads to hypothermia, a heat-induced illness or which requires resuscitation or hospital treatment for more than 24 hours

In some cases, you may not be in a position to know the full extent of an injury, e.g. when a prognosis has not yet been established in relation to an eye injury, or when efforts are being made to treat an injured limb which may ultimately require surgical amputation. In such situations, there is no requirement to make precautionary reports of specified injuries. It is likely that the accident will in any case require reporting due to the injured person being incapacitated for more than seven days. You should make your report as soon as a ‘specified injury’ has been confirmed.

Occupational diseases: these can easily be overlooked when it comes to RIDDOR, but any of the following which has been caused, or made worse, by the person’s current work must be reported:

• Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: where the person's work involves regular use of percussive or vibrating tools
• Cramp of the hand or forearm: where the person's work involves prolonged periods of repetitive movement of the fingers, hand or arm
• Occupational dermatitis: where the person's work involves significant or regular exposure to a known skin sensitiser or irritant
• Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome: where the person's work involves regular use of percussive or vibrating tools, or holding materials subject to percussive processes, or processes causing vibration
• Occupational asthma: where the person's work involves significant or regular exposure to a known respiratory sensitiser
• Tendonitis or tenosynovitis: in the hand or forearm, where the person's work is physically demanding and involves frequent, repetitive movements

A reportable disease must be diagnosed by a doctor. More information can be found here Occupational diseases - RIDDOR - HSE

• Occupational cancer or exposure to a biological agent – find more information here - Exposure to carcinogens, mutagens and biological agents - RIDDOR (hse.gov.uk)

Dangerous occurrences: because these are ‘near misses’, this is another category which is in danger of going unreported. Incidents that could have caused harm that should be reported include:

• Lifting equipment  - the collapse or overturning of any lifting equipment, or the failure of any load-bearing part, whether it is used for lifting goods, materials or people.
• Pressure system - the failure of a pressure system (other than a pipeline) with the potential to cause the death of any person. 
• Electrical incidents causing explosion or fire which stops work for more than 24 hours, or causes a significant risk of death
• Hazardous escape of substances
• Malfunction of breathing apparatus
• Electrical discharge from overhead power lines following contact with equipment
• Collapse of scaffolding

You are strongly advised to read the additional information which can be found here Dangerous occurrences - RIDDOR - HSE

People not at work:

You must report cases where a person not at work is injured due to a work-related accident and is taken from your premises to a hospital, by whatever means, for treatment.

RIDDOR only requires you to report when people have been injured because of a work-related accident. If the hospital cannot find any injury there is no need to make a report. Generally, however, unless they are informed voluntarily, businesses have no means of finding out what treatment a member of the public has received. You should make the judgement as to whether a work-related accident has caused an injury requiring treatment on the basis of the information available. However, it would be reasonable for you to enquire after the health of someone who was thought to be injured in your workplace, having recorded their details in your accident book.

The injured person must be taken from where the accident happened, by whatever means, to a hospital for treatment. A GP practice or a drop-in clinic is not a hospital, so there is no duty to report.

To help you decide whether or not an incident is reportable, there are some example questions here Examples of reportable incidents - RIDDOR - HSE

The accident book or an approved electronic equivalent, is a valuable document that you can use to record accident information as part of your management of health and safety. Accident book (hse.gov.uk)

Every employer must take reasonable steps to investigate every accident. Every employer with 10 or more persons normally employed at the same premises, must keep readily accessible a means of recording the details of any accident causing personal injury, and must preserve this record for a period of at least 3 years