RIDDOR — the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 — requires UK employers, the self-employed, and those in control of premises to report specified workplace incidents to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) or the relevant enforcing authority. Reportable incidents include deaths, specified serious injuries, over-seven-day injuries, occupational diseases, and dangerous occurrences. Failure to report when required is a criminal offence.
RIDDOR exists to help the HSE identify where risks arise and to target inspections and interventions. If you employ staff, work as a self-employed tradesperson, or control premises where work is carried out, you need to understand what triggers a report, how to make one, and the penalties for getting it wrong. This guide sets out the requirements in plain English.
What RIDDOR Requires
The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (SI 2013/1471) came into force on 1 October 2013, replacing the previous RIDDOR 1995 regulations. RIDDOR is made under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and applies to all work activities in Great Britain. Separate regulations apply in Northern Ireland.
Under Regulation 3, the responsible person is the employer of an injured worker, a self-employed person injured in their own work, or a person in control of premises where work is carried out. The responsible person must report specified incidents to the relevant enforcing authority — usually the HSE, but local authorities enforce for some sectors including offices, retail and hospitality. You determine the enforcing authority by the nature of the work activity, not the premises.
Regulation 4 lists the categories of reportable injury: death; specified injuries (serious fractures, amputations, crush injuries, serious burns, and others listed in Schedule 1); and injuries that result in a worker being incapacitated for more than seven consecutive days (excluding the day of the accident). Regulation 6 requires reporting of dangerous occurrences — near-miss events listed in Schedule 2 that did not cause injury but had serious potential. Regulation 8 requires reporting of occupational diseases diagnosed by a registered medical practitioner and listed in Schedule 3.
All reports must be made as soon as practicable. For deaths and specified injuries, the report must be made immediately — online at hse.gov.uk/riddor or by telephone. Over-seven-day injuries must be reported within 15 days of the accident. Occupational diseases must be reported as soon as a written diagnosis is received and the person is still engaged in the work to which the disease relates. Records of all reports must be kept for at least three years from the date the report was made.
Who Must Report Under RIDDOR
RIDDOR duties apply to:
- Employers: Must report injuries, diseases and dangerous occurrences involving their employees or contractors under their control, regardless of business size. A sole trader employing one part-time worker is subject to the same RIDDOR obligations as a multinational corporation.
- Self-employed individuals: Must report accidents resulting in their own death or specified injury. Self-employed persons do not report over-seven-day injuries to themselves, but must report if acting as the responsible person for others.
- People in control of premises: Must report incidents arising out of or in connection with work on premises they control — including landlords, facilities managers, and site operators — even where the injured person is not their employee.
- Gas installers: Additional duties under Regulation 7 to report gas incidents such as fittings or appliances causing death, loss of consciousness, or acute illness.
- Mine operators, offshore installation operators, and others: Sector-specific reporting requirements apply under Part 4 of RIDDOR (Regulations 10–13).
RIDDOR does not apply to members of the public who are injured on your premises unless the injury arises out of or in connection with a work activity. A customer slipping on a wet floor in a supermarket must be reported if the injury is serious and resulted from the way the work was carried out — for example, lack of warning signs or inadequate cleaning procedures. However, a member of the public injured in a purely non-work accident (such as tripping over their own shoelace) is not reportable under RIDDOR.
Key Duties at a Glance
- Report deaths immediately: Any work-related death must be reported by the quickest practicable means — online or by telephone (0345 300 9923) — under Regulation 4(1)(a).
- Report specified injuries immediately: Schedule 1 lists specified injuries including fractures other than to fingers, thumbs or toes; amputations; any injury likely to lead to permanent loss of sight or reduction in sight; crush injuries to the head or torso causing damage to the brain or internal organs; serious burns (covering more than 10% of the body or causing significant damage to eyes, respiratory system or other vital functions); scalping requiring hospital treatment; unconsciousness caused by head injury or asphyxia; and any injury arising from working in an enclosed space which leads to hypothermia or heat-induced illness, or requires resuscitation or admittance to hospital for more than 24 hours.
- Report over-seven-day injuries within 15 days: If a worker is incapacitated for normal work for more than seven consecutive days (not counting the day of the accident), a report must be made within 15 days of the accident under Regulation 4(1)(b). Incapacitation means unable to do their normal work or unable to carry out the full range of their normal duties.
- Report dangerous occurrences immediately: Near-miss events listed in Schedule 2 must be reported even if no injury occurred. Examples include: collapse, overturning or failure of load-bearing parts of lifts and lifting equipment; plant or equipment coming into contact with overhead power lines; electrical short circuit or overload causing fire or explosion; collapse or partial collapse of a scaffold over five metres high; unintended collapse of any building or structure under construction, or any false-work; explosion, collapse or bursting of any closed vessel; uncontrolled release of flammable liquids or gas; and accidental release of a biological agent likely to cause severe human infection or illness.
- Report occupational diseases as diagnosed: Regulation 8 and Schedule 3 list reportable diseases including carpal tunnel syndrome, occupational dermatitis, hand-arm vibration syndrome, occupational asthma, tendonitis or tenosynovitis of the hand or forearm, any occupational cancer, and certain infections including leptospirosis, hepatitis, tuberculosis, anthrax, legionellosis and tetanus. The report must be made as soon as a registered medical practitioner provides a written diagnosis and the person is engaged in work to which the disease relates.
- Keep records for three years: Under Regulation 12, a record of every RIDDOR report and every over-three-day injury (a previous RIDDOR 1995 requirement that no longer triggers a report but must still be recorded) must be kept for at least three years. The record must include the date and method of reporting, date, time and place of the event, personal details of those involved, and a brief description of the nature of the event or disease.
- Do not move the site after a death or specified injury unless authorised: Regulation 5 requires that where a death or specified injury has occurred, the responsible person must ensure that the site remains undisturbed until an HSE inspector arrives or gives permission to disturb it — except to rescue persons, prevent further injury or damage, or for law enforcement purposes. Deliberate disturbance of an incident scene can lead to prosecution for obstructing an HSE investigation.
- Report using the correct method: Most reports are made online at hse.gov.uk/riddor. Deaths and specified injuries must be reported immediately; where the online system is unavailable, use the telephone reporting line on 0345 300 9923. The HSE will provide a reference number for your records. You cannot delegate the legal duty to report — though you can arrange for someone else to make the report on your behalf, the legal responsibility remains with the duty holder.
Penalties for Non-Compliance
Failure to report a RIDDOR incident when required is a criminal offence under Section 33 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. In the magistrates court, the maximum fine is £20,000 per offence. In the Crown Court, fines are unlimited. An employer who fails to report multiple incidents can be prosecuted separately for each failure.
The HSE takes non-reporting seriously. In 2022/23, the HSE completed 15,452 investigations into workplace incidents. Where failures are identified during an investigation, the HSE can issue improvement or prohibition notices, and recover the cost of enforcement action under the Fee for Intervention (FFI) scheme at a rate of £163 per hour. A single inspection visit following a reportable incident that was not reported can result in FFI charges of several hundred pounds even before any prosecution.
In 2022/23, there were 135 fatal injuries to workers in Great Britain, and 68,000 non-fatal injuries to employees reported under RIDDOR, according to HSE statistics. Research suggests significant under-reporting: the Labour Force Survey estimates that only around 50% of non-fatal injuries to employees that should be reported under RIDDOR are actually reported. The HSE actively pursues non-reporting cases, particularly where serious harm has occurred.
How RIDDOR Relates to Risk Assessments
RIDDOR and risk assessment requirements under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 serve different but complementary purposes. RIDDOR is a reactive reporting duty triggered when an incident occurs. Risk assessment is a proactive duty to identify hazards and implement control measures before work begins.
Every employer and self-employed person carrying out work must complete a risk assessment under Regulation 3 of MHSWR 1999. If the incident that triggers a RIDDOR report was foreseeable and could have been prevented by adequate risk assessment and control measures, the HSE will investigate why those measures were not in place. A RIDDOR report does not replace the need for a written risk assessment — in fact, the occurrence of a reportable incident is often evidence that the original risk assessment was inadequate.
Following a RIDDOR report, you must review your risk assessment to determine whether it remains suitable or needs updating. If the incident revealed a previously unidentified hazard, or showed that existing controls were insufficient, the risk assessment must be revised and new controls implemented before work resumes. This is a legal requirement under Regulation 3 of MHSWR 1999.
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RIDDOR Reporting and the Construction Industry
Construction accounted for the highest number of fatal injuries to workers of any sector in 2022/23, with 45 worker deaths. The construction industry also reports a high volume of non-fatal injuries under RIDDOR, particularly specified injuries such as fractures from falls, crush injuries, and amputations from machinery.
Construction contractors must understand that RIDDOR duties apply to all construction work regardless of project size or value. A self-employed sole trader working on a small domestic extension must report a specified injury to themselves, and must report any injury to a worker under their control if they are acting as the principal contractor or employer. The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 do not replace RIDDOR — they sit alongside it.
Common RIDDOR triggers in construction include: falls from height resulting in fractures (specified injury); scaffold collapses or near collapses (dangerous occurrence); workers incapacitated for more than seven days after manual handling injuries or exposure to hazardous substances (over-seven-day injury); hand-arm vibration syndrome or occupational dermatitis diagnosed in workers regularly using power tools or cement (occupational disease); and fatalities from contact with overhead power lines, struck-by incidents, or falls through fragile roofs.
If you are a construction contractor, your RIDDOR reporting obligations overlap with your duties to maintain site records, report to the principal contractor or client, and notify the HSE of notifiable projects. A RIDDOR report does not replace the need for a construction phase plan or a site-specific risk assessment, but the HSE will request both during any investigation following a report.
RIDDOR for the Self-Employed
Self-employed individuals have a narrower RIDDOR duty than employers. Under Regulation 3(1)(b), a self-employed person must report any accident connected with their work which results in their own death or a specified injury listed in Schedule 1. They do not need to report over-seven-day injuries to themselves.
However, if a self-employed person is acting as an employer (for example, engaging a subcontractor or labourer), they become the responsible person for that worker and must report any death, specified injury, or over-seven-day injury to that worker under Regulation 4. Similarly, if the self-employed person is working on premises controlled by another person (a client or main contractor), the person in control of those premises is responsible for reporting incidents involving the self-employed worker where the incident arises out of or in connection with the work activity.
In practice, many self-employed tradespeople work on sites controlled by others. If you are self-employed and suffer a serious injury on a client's premises, you should report it to the client immediately — they are likely the responsible person for RIDDOR purposes. However, if you are working on your own premises or at a location where you are in control (such as a site you have hired), you are the responsible person and must report specified injuries to yourself.
Common RIDDOR Reporting Mistakes
The most common errors employers make with RIDDOR reporting include:
- Failing to report near misses: Dangerous occurrences listed in Schedule 2 must be reported even if no one was injured. Many employers wrongly assume that if no injury occurred, no report is required. Scaffold collapses, lifting equipment failures, and electrical incidents are frequently under-reported.
- Miscounting the seven days: The day of the accident does not count. If a worker is injured on Monday and returns to work the following Tuesday (eight calendar days later but only six days excluding the day of the accident), the injury is not reportable as an over-seven-day injury. If they return on Wednesday or later, it becomes reportable.
- Reporting non-work injuries: RIDDOR applies only to injuries arising out of or in connection with work. A worker who trips over their own bag in the car park before clocking in has not suffered a work-related injury. A worker who develops a cold is not suffering from an occupational disease — but a worker diagnosed with occupational asthma caused by exposure to isocyanates in paint is.
- Failing to keep records: Regulation 12 requires records of RIDDOR reports and over-three-day injuries to be kept for three years. The HSE will request these records during inspections. Failure to produce them is evidence of poor safety management and can result in enforcement action.
- Reporting to the wrong authority: Most employers report to the HSE, but local authorities enforce health and safety in offices, shops, hotels, restaurants, warehouses, and leisure facilities. Check the HSE website to confirm the correct enforcing authority for your work activity before reporting.
Changes from RIDDOR 1995 to RIDDOR 2013
The 2013 regulations simplified reporting in several ways. The most significant change was increasing the threshold for reportable injuries from over-three-day to over-seven-day. This reduced the administrative burden on employers while maintaining focus on serious incidents. However, employers must still record over-three-day injuries in their accident book and internal records — they simply do not trigger a RIDDOR report.
Other changes included: removal of some less serious specified injuries; simplification of dangerous occurrences; removal of reportable minor injuries to non-workers (members of the public taken to hospital are no longer reportable unless the injury arose from a work-related cause); and clarification that self-employed persons do not report over-seven-day injuries to themselves.
Despite these changes, the core purpose of RIDDOR remains the same: to provide the HSE with data to identify where and how risks arise, target inspections and interventions, and ultimately prevent workplace injuries and ill health. Accurate and timely reporting is not just a legal duty — it helps protect other workers in your industry from suffering similar harm.
How to Prepare for a RIDDOR Incident
Every workplace should have a plan for responding to a serious incident:
- Train your managers and supervisors on what triggers a RIDDOR report and how to preserve the scene after a death or specified injury.
- Display the HSE RIDDOR reporting phone number (0345 300 9923) in your office, site cabin or staff area.
- Maintain an accident book (compliant with the Data Protection Act 2018) and ensure all incidents are recorded.
- Designate a responsible person within your organisation who will make RIDDOR reports and liaise with the HSE.
- Have a written risk assessment for every work activity. If an incident occurs, the HSE will request it.
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