Accident and Ill Health

Under health and safety law, you must report and keep a record of certain injuries, incidents and cases of work-related disease.

You can find out which ones must be reported and how to report them on the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) report an incident (opens external website) pages but generally the law requires the following to be reported:

• deaths;
• major injuries;
• over seven day injuries;
• an accident involving an employee or self employed person and the person is away from work or unable to work normally for more than seven consecutive days;
• injuries to members of the public where they are taken to hospital;
• work related diseases;
• dangerous occurrences;
• an occurrence which does not result in a reportable injury, but potentially could have.

All such work related incidents are required to be reported and businesses are encouraged to do so through the Incident Contact Centre (ICC) by phone or through the Health and Safety Executive RIDDOR website (opens external website).

Keeping records will help you to identify patterns of accidents and injuries, and will help when completing your risk assessment. Your insurance company may also want to see your records if there is a work-related claim.

Once an accident has been notified, we assess the circumstances and may carry out an investigation.

RIDDOR Reporting Change on 6 April 2012

Over seven-day injuries

As of 6 April 2012, the over-three-day reporting requirement for people injured at work changed to more than seven days.

Now you only have to report injuries that lead to an employee or self-employed person being away from work, or unable to perform their normal work duties, for more than seven consecutive days as the result of an occupational accident or injury (not counting the day of the accident but including weekends and rest days). The report must be made within 15 days of the accident.

Over three-day injuries

You must still keep a record of the accident if the worker has been incapacitated for more than three consecutive days. If you are an employer, who must keep an accident book under the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1979, that record will be enough.

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