RIDDOR 2013: what is reportable, and the clock that starts on the day
The distinction that costs people: an over-three-day injury is recorded, an over-seven-day injury is reported, and the deadline runs from the accident rather than from the day somebody filled in the form.
RIDDOR puts a duty on the responsible person — usually the employer, or the self-employed person, or whoever is in control of the premises — to notify HSE of certain work-related events. Not everything that hurts somebody is reportable, and the categories have different clocks.
The deadlines
| What happened | What is owed, and by when |
|---|---|
| Death | Notify without delay by the quickest practicable means; a report follows within 10 days |
| Specified injury |
Notify without delay; report within 10 days |
| Dangerous occurrence |
Notify without delay; report within 10 days |
| Over-seven-day injury |
Report within 15 days of the accident |
| Over-three-day injury | Not reportable. It must be recorded. |
| Occupational disease | Report on receiving a written diagnosis from a doctor |
Counting the seven days
The day of the accident itself does not count. The days after it do — including weekends, rest days and days the person would not have been working anyway. It is incapacity to do their normal work that counts, not absence from site: somebody on light duties because they cannot do their job is incapacitated.
The fifteen days run from the accident, not from the seventh day, and not from the day the absence was noticed. An injury that turns out on day nine to have passed seven days is already two days into its reporting window.
Reporting and recording are different duties
An over-three-day injury is not reported to HSE, but it must be recorded, and the record has to be kept. Treating “not reportable” as “nothing to do” is the commonest error in this area, and it is the one that shows up in an inspection, because the accident book and the RIDDOR submissions are read side by side.
What makes it work-related
An accident is reportable only if it arises out of or in connection with work — the way the work was organised, the plant or substances used, or the condition of the premises. A worker who trips on their own shoelace in a corridor has had an accident at work that is not, on its own, work-related. The judgement belongs to the responsible person and should be recorded either way, with the reasoning: “decided not reportable, because…” is a defensible position and a blank is not.
How Veystrum handles it
Veystrum records an incident against the date it occurred, works out which RIDDOR category applies from what was recorded, and counts the window from the occurrence. A report that is owed and not yet made appears on the exception report with the days remaining — and once the window has passed it says so plainly rather than quietly dropping the row, because a missed statutory deadline is not less true for being in the past.
Where the facts recorded cannot decide a category, it says that too. “Not assessable” and “not reportable” are different answers, and only one of them means somebody can stop thinking about it.