Checking your employer has made a RIDDOR report
Under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) employers are required by law to report:
– A work-related death.
– Severe injuries.
– Any injury that results in an employee being off-work for more than 7 consecutive days.
– Injury to a member of the public which results in them being taken to hospital.
– Certain cases of work-related ill-health, and a number of events that, while they may not have caused injury, could have posed a serious danger to life or health.

Reportable injuries and dangerous occurrences are defined in Schedule 1 to the RIDDOR Regulations: dangerous occurrences in Schedule 2, and reportable diseases in Schedule 3. Ask your employer for a copy of “Guide to the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases & Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995” (L73) ISBN: 0-7176-1012-8. HSE Books. A free leaflet about RIDDOR as it applies to schools is at http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/edis1.pdf

Reporting should be done to the Incident Contact Centre, a joint HSE and local authorities centre which co-ordinates the reports and ensures the correct enforcing authority is informed. The centre number is 0845 300 9923; most reports are made by telephone these days. Reporting of Injuries, Diseases & Dangerous Occurrences RIDDOR (hse.gov.uk)

For death, serious injury and dangerous occurrences, the report should be made immediately or as soon as possible after the event; for plus-3-days absence, the report must be made within 10 days. A copy of the report is sent back to the employer for their records, and to ensure compliance with the requirement for the employer to keep such records. The RIDDOR records must be kept in the workplace for a minimum of 3 years. Your employer has a duty to give you a copy of the RIDDOR report record if you request one. (SRSC Regulations: Reg 7(1))

Checking an injury or incident has been reported
1) Phone the Incident Contact Centre on 0845 300 9923.

2) Say that you want to check that a report of an incident, injury etc has been made. If asked why, tell them you are the injured persons safety representative. Health and safety factsheet
3) Have ready the:
– Name and address of the person injured, including postcode.
– Date of the injury or incident.
– Place it occurred.
– Nature of the injury.

It may be possible to get the information even if you don’t have, for example, the post code. They will undertake to give you the information within a specified number of working days, usually 5, either by telephone call or e-mail