Incident & near-miss report builder

Why report near misses, not just injuries

A near miss is the same event as a serious injury, minus the luck. Recording near misses and damage-only events is the cheapest safety improvement there is — you get the lesson without anyone getting hurt. The crews that capture and act on near misses are the ones that stop the version that does cause harm. A report is only worth filling in if the corrective actions actually get done, which is why this builder pushes you from the facts through to root cause and a dated action list.

RIDDOR in brief

RIDDOR — the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 — is the law that requires certain workplace incidents to be reported to the HSE. The duty to report falls on the responsible person: the employer, or whoever is in control of the work premises — never the injured person. RIDDOR covers four things: work-related deaths, specified serious injuries to workers, certain over-seven-day absences, and listed dangerous occurrences (near-miss events with real harm potential, such as a lifting-equipment failure or a scaffold collapse).

Accident book vs RIDDOR — they're not the same

Almost every workplace incident goes in your own accident book / incident log — that internal record is always good practice and, for many events, a legal recording duty. Only a subset of those incidents are RIDDOR reportable to the HSE. An over-three-day (but not over-seven) absence, for example, must be recorded internally but does not need a RIDDOR report. Recording an incident is not the same as reporting it, and the RIDDOR check in this tool is about the second step.

RIDDOR reporting deadlines

This tool is a guide, not a ruling

The reportability check works through the RIDDOR criteria with you, but it cannot make a legal decision for your specific incident. If the answer is borderline, or anything about the injury changes, treat it as reportable and check the official guidance — it is safer to report and be told it wasn't needed than to miss a duty. Make reports and read the full guidance at hse.gov.uk/riddor.

Source: RIDDOR 2013 (SI 2013/1471) and HSE guidance Reporting accidents and incidents at work (INDG453).