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One of my employees has had a serious accident while at work...



While a workplace accident might seem an unlikely occurrence, according to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), there are an estimated 1.6 million workplace accidents in the UK each year.




Under the 1995 Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR), you have a legal responsibility to report work-based accidents, dangerous occurrences and reportable diseases.




If you have a workplace accident that causes the death or serious injury of an employee (or if a member of the public is killed or taken to hospital), you should report the incident to the RIDDOR Incident Contact Centre. You are also obliged to submit an accident form within ten days (forms are available on both the RIDDOR and HSE websites).




You are required to report:

  • Someone's death as a result of a work-related accident or violence.
  • Major injuries (eg fractures, loss of limb, sight or consciousness).
  • Dangerous occurrences that might not have caused injury, but which have the potential to have done so (eg an explosion, failure of the load-bearing parts of a crane or collapse of part of a building or scaffolding).
  • An employee working on your premises suffering an injury that results in their being absent from work (or inability to do their full duties) for more than three days.
  • Certain work-related diseases. These occur when a doctor notifies you that your employee is suffering from a reportable work-related disease. These include some poisonings, tetanus, lung diseases, hand-arm vibration syndrome. For a list of reportable diseases visit www.riddor.gov.uk/info.html
  • Gas-related incidents, when a person dies or suffers a major injury as a result of gas that you distributed, filled, imported or supplied.


As well as reporting the incident, if you have ten or more employees, you must record it in your firm's accident book (you are required to have one of these). All accidents, incidents and near misses should be detailed in this.



Include basic information such as the time and date of the incident, the person's name and the nature of the injury. You must keep this information for at least three years and make records available for health-and-safety representatives to inspect on request. You can purchase an accident book on the HSE website.




When a serious accident or death occurs, expect a visit from a health and safety inspector or someone from your local authority. They will speak to you, relevant members of staff and inspect the scene. After an inquiry has taken place, you will find out whether you have any legal case to answer.

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