How to Report under RIDDOR: the Form, the Deadline, the HSE

The step: find the reportable, then report

The first step is the check, not the form. When an incident happens on site, the question is: does it sit on one of the five RIDDOR lines — the death, the specified injury, the over-7-day injury, the notifiable disease, the dangerous occurrence? If yes, it is reportable, and the clock is running.

The report comes second. The internal record happens the same day, the first-aid response happens immediately, and the RIDDOR report goes to the HSE inside the deadline. Report first, investigate second — the investigation runs in parallel; it does not gate the report.

The form: the online route, and what to include

The report goes to the HSE three ways: online (the HSE website, the typical route, about 10 minutes), by phone (the 24-hour line, for the immediate reports — the death and the specified injury), or by post. The phone report is followed up with the online form.

The form captures four blocks: the reporter (name, contact, role), the person injured (name, occupation), the incident (date, time, location, description), and the details (the injury, the part of the body, the cause). A supervisor who knows the site can complete the form in one sitting — which is the point of the internal procedure.

The deadline: the clock runs from the incident

The RIDDOR clock runs from the date of the incident — not from the investigation, not from the end of the week. The death, the specified injury, and the serious dangerous occurrences are reported immediately, as soon as practicable. The over-7-day injury, the notifiable disease, and the other occurrences are reported within 15 days.

The deadline is not optional: a late report is an offence, and the offence is what the prosecution is built on. The procedure that misses the deadline is the procedure that fails — whatever else the site did well.

The internal procedure: the supervisor knows

The internal procedure runs the incident to the report: the incident (record it, first aid, the same shift), the reportable check (the five lines, a yes or no), the deadline (the clock, from the incident), and the report (online or phone, to the HSE).

The supervisor owns the procedure, and the supervisor is briefed on it in the toolbox talk. A procedure that is not reviewed is a procedure that does not work — the review is annual, and after every near-miss that was close. The internal report is the duty in Section 7 of the HSWA, and it is what feeds the RIDDOR.

RIDDOR Reporting Timescales (the Deadlines at a Glance)

The deadlines, at a glance: the death — 15 days; the dangerous occurrence — 15 days; the specified injury — 15 days; the over-7-day incapacitation — 7 days; the notifiable disease — 14 days. The report goes to the HSE on the RIDDOR online form, and the phone line is for the urgent. The internal procedure runs ahead of the deadline — the event is reported to the supervisor the same shift, the first facts are recorded while they are fresh, and the responsible person decides the reportable and the deadline, on the day, not at the end of the week.

Who Is Responsible for RIDDOR Reporting?

The duty to report sits with the responsible person — the employer, the self-employed, or the one who controls the premises (the school, the hospital, the prison, the construction site where there is no employer). The worker reports to the supervisor, the supervisor to the responsible person, and the responsible person to the HSE. The chain is the procedure, and the procedure that fails is the one where the worker is told to "not make a fuss" — the internal report is the duty in Section 7 of the HSWA, and it is the one that feeds the RIDDOR.