If someone has just been hurt at work and you've typed "RIDDOR" into Google to work out what to do next, here's the short version: RIDDOR is the law that tells UK employers which workplace accidents, diseases and near-misses must be formally reported to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) — and it sets hard deadlines for doing it, some as tight as "without delay."
Get it wrong and you're not just risking a telling-off. Failing to report a reportable incident is a criminal offence in its own right, separate from whatever caused the accident.
This guide covers everything an employer, manager or self-employed worker needs to know: what RIDDOR actually stands for, who's legally responsible for reporting, exactly what has to be reported (and what doesn't), the timescales for each category, how to submit a report, and what happens if you don't.
What Does RIDDOR Stand For?
RIDDOR stands for the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 — the UK regulations that require employers, the self-employed, and people in control of work premises to report certain workplace accidents, occupational diseases and dangerous occurrences (near-misses) to the relevant enforcing authority, most commonly the HSE.
RIDDOR replaced an earlier, broader version of the same regulations in October 2013. The main practical change was raising the threshold for reportable injuries from over-3-days'-incapacitation to over-7-days', while adding a shorter, more focused list of "specified injuries" that must be reported immediately regardless of how much time off follows.
RIDDOR sits alongside — but is legally distinct from — the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which is the overarching duty of care legislation, and the accident book requirement under the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1979, which is about internal record-keeping rather than external reporting. In short: the accident book is where you write everything down; RIDDOR is the narrower legal duty to escalate the serious ones to the HSE.
Who Has to Report Under RIDDOR? (The "Responsible Person")
RIDDOR doesn't put the reporting duty on the injured person — it puts it on the "responsible person," which depends on the situation:
Employers report work-related accidents, diseases and dangerous occurrences involving their own employees.
Self-employed workers report incidents that happen on their own premises or in a domestic setting where they're working — including injuries to themselves. If a self-employed person is injured while working on someone else's premises, the duty to report shifts to the person in control of that site; the self-employed worker should still tell them what happened.
People in control of work premises (landlords, site operators, event organisers) report deaths, certain injuries to members of the public, and dangerous occurrences that happen on their premises, even where none of their own staff are involved.
Members of the public, patients and injured employees themselves are not expected to file a RIDDOR report — that responsibility sits with whoever is legally "in charge" of the situation.
What's Reportable Under RIDDOR?
This is the part most people actually need answered, and it's also the part competitors tend to answer vaguely. There are seven categories.
1. Work-related deaths
Any death resulting from a work-related accident must be reported, regardless of how much time passes between the accident and the death (subject to a one-year limit under the regulations).
2. Specified injuries to workers
These must be reported regardless of how much time off follows, because the injury itself is considered serious enough on its own:
Specified injury | What it covers |
|---|---|
Fractures | All fractures except to fingers, thumbs and toes |
Amputations | Traumatic or surgical loss of an arm, hand, finger, thumb, leg, foot or toe |
Loss of sight | Permanent loss of sight, or reduced sight, in one or both eyes |
Crush injuries | Damage to the brain or internal organs from crushing to the head or torso |
Serious burns | Burns covering over 10% of the body, or significant damage to eyes, the respiratory system or other vital organs |
Scalping | Traumatic separation of skin from the head requiring hospital treatment |
Loss of consciousness | Caused by head injury or asphyxia, whatever the duration |
Enclosed-space injuries | Hypothermia, heat-induced illness, or injury requiring resuscitation or 24+ hours of hospital treatment |
3. Over-7-day incapacitation injuries
If a worker is injured at work and is unable to carry out their normal duties for more than 7 consecutive days (not counting the day of the accident, but including weekends and non-working days), it's reportable — even if the injury itself isn't on the specified list above.
4. Injuries to non-workers
Where a member of the public, visitor, patient or contractor is injured on your premises and is taken directly to hospital for treatment, it's reportable — even if it wouldn't have met the threshold for a worker.
5. Occupational diseases
Certain conditions, when formally diagnosed by a doctor as work-related, must be reported — including occupational dermatitis, occupational asthma, hand-arm vibration syndrome, carpal tunnel syndrome linked to vibrating tools, and certain occupational cancers.
6. Dangerous occurrences
These are the "near-misses" — incidents that didn't injure anyone but had clear potential to. There are around 27 categories set out in Schedule 2 of the regulations, including: the collapse or overturning of lifting equipment; scaffold collapse above a certain height; failure of a pressure system with the potential to cause death; an unintended explosion; an electrical short circuit or fire lasting more than 24 hours; the uncontrolled release of a flammable liquid, gas or hazardous substance; and structural collapses involving significant quantities of material. Mining, quarrying and offshore installations each have their own additional categories.
7. Gas incidents
Registered gas engineers and suppliers have an additional duty to report dangerous gas fittings or appliances using form F2508G, generally within 14 days. This runs alongside, not instead of, separate duties under the Gas Safety (Management) Regulations.
What's exempt
Not every workplace accident is reportable. Commuting accidents (unless a work vehicle is involved), most road traffic accidents on the public highway, and minor injuries under the 7-day threshold don't require a RIDDOR report — though they should still go in the accident book. If in doubt, treat it as a "record it either way" situation rather than skip it entirely.
RIDDOR Reporting Timescales at a Glance
Timescales are the part that trips people up under pressure — mainly because they're not the same for every category.
Incident type | Notify | Full report deadline |
|---|---|---|
Death or specified injury | Without delay (phone the HSE Incident Contact Centre) | Within 10 days, in writing |
Dangerous occurrence | Without delay (online) | Within 10 days |
Over-7-day incapacitation injury | No immediate notification required | Within 15 days of the accident |
Occupational disease | — | As soon as you receive the written diagnosis |
Gas incident (dangerous fitting) | — | Within 14 days (form F2508G) |
"Without delay" is exactly where employers most often get caught out — a busy site manager's idea of "without delay" and HSE's are not always the same thing. In practice, "without delay" means as soon as the facts are known, not once the paperwork is convenient, and the safest approach for deaths and specified injuries is to phone it in on the same day. The 10 and 15-day clocks both start on the date of the accident itself, not the date it was written up or noticed.
How to Submit a RIDDOR Report
Establish it's reportable. Work through the categories above — deaths, specified injuries, over-7-day incapacitation, injuries to non-workers, occupational disease, dangerous occurrences, or gas incidents.
For deaths and specified injuries, call it in first. Phone the HSE Incident Contact Centre on 0345 300 9923 (Monday–Friday, 8:30am–5pm) so the notification happens "without delay," then follow up with the written report.
Complete the correct online form. Reports are submitted through HSE's online RIDDOR reporting service using the F2508 form family: F2508 for injuries and dangerous occurrences, F2508A for diseases, and F2508G for gas incidents.
Keep a copy for your own records. A completed RIDDOR report should also be logged against the original entry in your accident book, so the two records stay linked if HSE ever asks to see them together.
Tell the right people internally. Depending on your sector, that might include your health and safety officer, your insurer (most employers' liability policies require notification of RIDDOR-reportable events), and, for construction sites, the principal contractor.
RIDDOR vs the Accident Book: What's the Difference?
This is the single most confused pairing in workplace compliance, so it's worth being precise about it.
The accident book (often referred to by its old form number, BI 510) is your internal record of every workplace accident, however minor — a legal requirement under the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1979 for most employers. RIDDOR is the separate legal duty to escalate certain, more serious accidents from that book to the HSE.
In practice: every RIDDOR-reportable incident should also appear in your accident book, but the reverse isn't true — the great majority of accident book entries (a stubbed toe, a minor cut needing a plaster) will never meet the RIDDOR threshold and don't need to go anywhere near the HSE.
What Happens If You Don't Report a RIDDOR Incident?
Failing to make a required RIDDOR report is a criminal offence under Section 33 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, entirely separate from any liability for the underlying accident itself. In practice that means:
HSE can prosecute the responsible person (the business and/or named individuals) specifically for the failure to report, even where the accident itself involved no negligence.
Fines for health and safety offences are calculated under the Sentencing Council's Health and Safety Offences Definitive Guideline, which scales penalties to the organisation's turnover and can run into hundreds of thousands of pounds for larger employers, with no statutory upper cap in the Crown Court.
Individual duty holders — directors, site managers — can face personal prosecution and, in serious cases, imprisonment.
A missed report also weakens your position with insurers and, for larger contractors, can affect pre-qualification and tender eligibility, since many tenders now ask for RIDDOR history directly.
Common RIDDOR Reporting Mistakes
A few patterns come up again and again in HSE enforcement notes and among the employers we talk to:
Confusing "over-7-day" with "over-3-day." The threshold changed in 2013; some older internal policies and training materials never got updated.
Waiting for a formal diagnosis before recording anything. The accident book entry should happen immediately; only the RIDDOR disease report waits for written diagnosis.
Assuming a near-miss doesn't need reporting because no one was hurt. Dangerous occurrences are reportable precisely because no one was hurt this time.
Losing track of the clock. The 10 and 15-day windows run from the date of the accident, not the date someone got round to writing it up.
Treating self-employed contractors as automatically exempt. They're not — see the self-employed rules above.