RIDDOR Reporting and the Accident Book: A Practical Guide for UK Construction (2026)

If you run a construction business, you will deal with RIDDOR at some point. Someone falls, a scaffold component drops, a worker is off for longer than expected, and suddenly you need to know whether the incident has to be reported to the HSE and by when. It is one of those areas that feels far more complicated than it needs to be, and the pressure of a real incident does not make it any easier to think clearly.

We run DDC Scaffolding alongside building Complys, so we have been on both sides of this. We have had to stop, work out whether something was reportable, log it properly and keep the record safe. The rules themselves are not actually that mysterious once you break them down. The confusion usually comes from mixing up two separate things: reporting to the HSE under RIDDOR, and recording injuries in your accident book. They overlap, but they are not the same duty.

This guide walks through both in plain terms. We will cover what RIDDOR is, who has to report, what is reportable, the time limits that trip people up, how you actually make a report, and the records you must keep. Treat this as general guidance to get you oriented, and always check the current HSE guidance for your exact situation, because your circumstances may carry details this article does not.

What is RIDDOR?

RIDDOR stands for the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013. It is the law that says certain serious workplace incidents must be reported to the relevant enforcing authority, which for most construction work is the Health and Safety Executive, the HSE.

The point of RIDDOR is not to punish you for having an accident. It exists so that the HSE and local authorities can see where and how serious harm is happening across industries, spot patterns, and target their work where risk is highest. Construction has always been high on that list, which is why RIDDOR reporting matters so much on our sites. Reporting an incident is not an admission that you did something wrong. It is a legal duty that applies whether or not anyone was at fault.

It helps to be clear from the outset that RIDDOR only covers work-related incidents of a particular seriousness. Most minor cuts, bruises and knocks are not reportable to the HSE at all. They still go in your accident book, which we will come to, but they do not trigger a RIDDOR report. Getting that distinction straight saves a lot of unnecessary worry.

Who has to report?

The duty to report falls on what the regulations call the responsible person. In most cases that is the employer of the injured worker, or the person who is in control of the premises where the work is being carried out. On a construction site this usually means the principal contractor or the employer, depending on the arrangement.

This is worth being precise about, because on a busy site with several firms working together it is easy to assume someone else will handle it. If one of your operatives is injured, the responsibility to report generally sits with you as their employer. If you are in control of the site and a member of the public is hurt, it can sit with you as the person in control of the premises. When you are unsure which party carries the duty on a particular job, agree it in advance rather than after an incident, because the clock starts ticking the moment something happens.

A worker themselves does not make the report. Nor does the HSE expect the injured person to sort it out. It is the responsible person who reports, keeps the record and, where needed, follows up.

What is reportable under RIDDOR?

This is the question everyone asks, so let us set it out clearly. RIDDOR covers several distinct categories, and an incident only needs to fall into one of them to be reportable. The main types of reportable incidents in construction are as follows.

• Work-related deaths. Any death arising out of or in connection with work must be reported.
• Specified injuries to workers. These are the more serious injuries listed in the regulations. They include fractures other than to fingers, thumbs and 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, scalpings that require hospital treatment, loss of consciousness caused by head injury or asphyxia, and injuries from working in an enclosed space that lead to hypothermia, heat-induced illness or resuscitation or admittance to hospital.
• Over-seven-day injuries. Where a worker is incapacitated for more than seven consecutive days as a result of a work injury, not counting the day of the accident itself but counting weekends and rest days, this must be reported. We will come back to the over seven day injury below because the counting catches people out.
• Certain occupational diseases. Where a doctor diagnoses a worker with a specified work-related disease, such as occupational dermatitis, hand-arm vibration syndrome, occupational asthma or certain cancers linked to their work, it is reportable.
• Dangerous occurrences. These are specified near-miss events that had the potential to cause serious harm even if no one was actually hurt. On construction sites they include the collapse or overturning of lifting equipment, the collapse of scaffolding over a certain height, the accidental collapse of a structure, and the unintended collapse of an excavation, among others listed in the regulations.
• Injuries to members of the public. If a member of the public or a person not at work is injured in connection with your work and is taken from the scene to hospital for treatment, that is reportable.

That last category matters on any job near a footpath, a road or occupied premises. If a passer-by is struck by something and taken to hospital, it does not matter that they are not your employee. The connection to your work is what makes it reportable.

What is not reportable

It is just as useful to know what does not trigger a report. A minor injury treated with basic first aid and no time off work is not a RIDDOR matter. A worker who is off for three or four days is not, on its own, an over-seven-day report. A member of the public who is shaken but not taken to hospital is not reportable under that category. And an injury that is not connected to the work activity, such as someone tripping over their own feet in a way that has nothing to do with the work or the site conditions, may fall outside RIDDOR even if it happens on your premises. When in doubt, this is exactly the sort of judgement the current HSE guidance, or a tool that walks you through the questions, can help with.

The over-seven-day injury explained

The over seven day injury deserves its own section because the counting is where good people get it wrong. The rule is that you report when a worker is unable to carry out their normal work for more than seven consecutive days because of a work-related injury.

Here is the part to get right. You do not count the day the accident happened. You start counting from the day after. You do count every day after that, including weekends, bank holidays and any rest days, whether or not the person would normally have worked them. So if someone is injured on a Monday and is unable to do their normal duties for the whole of the following week, you will quickly pass the seven-day threshold. Once the incapacity runs beyond seven days, the report is due.

Incapacitated means unable to do the full range of their normal duties, not necessarily bedridden. A scaffolder who cannot climb or lift but is sitting in the office answering the phone is still incapacitated for the purposes of their normal work. Keep an eye on anyone signed off or on restricted duties, because a short absence that drags on can cross the line without anyone consciously deciding it has.

Time limits: get these right

The time limits are strict, and they differ depending on the type of report. This is one of the most common places people slip up, so here they are set out plainly.

• Deaths and specified injuries, dangerous occurrences, and reportable injuries to members of the public must be reported without delay. In practice this means as soon as you reasonably can, and in any case a full report must reach the HSE within ten days of the incident. For a death or a major incident you would normally also make immediate contact rather than wait.
• Over-seven-day injuries must be reported within fifteen days of the accident. You have a little longer here because, by definition, you often will not know an injury has passed the seven-day mark until several days have gone by. Once it does, you then have until the fifteenth day after the accident to submit the report.
• Reportable occupational diseases must be reported without delay once you receive the written diagnosis from a doctor.

The safest habit is to treat every potentially reportable incident as urgent from the moment it happens. Do not sit on it while you decide. Work out quickly whether it is likely reportable, and if it is, get it in well inside the limit rather than counting days to the deadline. Missing a RIDDOR deadline is entirely avoidable, and it is the kind of thing that looks careless if the HSE ever reviews your records.

How to report to the HSE

Reporting is done to the HSE, and for almost all incidents it is done through the HSE online reporting system on their website. You complete the appropriate online form for the type of incident, whether that is an injury, a dangerous occurrence, a case of disease or a report about a member of the public, and submit it. You will receive a copy of the report for your own records once it is filed, which you should keep.

There is one exception worth knowing. For the report of a fatal or specified major injury, the HSE runs a telephone service so that the most serious cases can be reported by phone. For everything else, online is the route. The online forms ask for the details you would expect: who was involved, what happened, when and where, the nature of the injury or occurrence, and information about your business. Having those details to hand, ideally already logged, makes the report quick to complete.

When you make the report, be factual and accurate. Describe what happened rather than guessing at ultimate causes you have not yet established. The report is a notification, not a full investigation, and you can carry out your own investigation alongside it.

The accident book and the records you must keep

Now to the part that runs alongside RIDDOR and often gets tangled up with it. There are two separate record-keeping duties here, and it helps to hold them apart.

First, under RIDDOR itself, you must keep a record of any reportable injury, disease or dangerous occurrence. That means for every incident you report to the HSE, you keep your own record of it: the date and method of reporting, the details of the person affected, the date, time and place of the event, and a description of what happened. These records must be kept for a defined period, and being able to produce them is part of complying with RIDDOR, not an optional extra.

Second, and separately, there is the accident book. The accident book is where you record injuries at work more broadly, including the minor ones that never reach the threshold for a RIDDOR report. Keeping an accident book is good practice and, for many employers, a practical necessity. It gives you a running record of what has happened on site, it supports any later claim or investigation, and it feeds directly into your RIDDOR decisions because the same entry that logs a minor injury today might be the one you look back at when that injury turns into an over-seven-day absence.

There is also a data protection angle that is easy to miss. An accident record contains personal information about an injured individual, including details of their health. A properly kept accident book keeps each person's entry private rather than on open display, which helps you meet your data protection duties at the same time as your health and safety ones. An old-style paper book where every entry is visible to the next person who opens it does not sit comfortably with that. Keeping individual records separate and secure is part of doing this properly.

Why the two duties work best together

Because the accident book and your RIDDOR records draw on the same underlying facts, keeping them in step saves a great deal of trouble. When every incident is logged consistently, with the same core details, working out whether something is reportable becomes a matter of checking the entry against the criteria rather than reconstructing events from memory days later. It also means that if an absence stretches past seven days, you already have the original record to build the RIDDOR report from.

How Complys helps

This is the exact problem we built Complys to solve, because we were living it on our own sites. Complys includes an accident book where you log accidents and incidents as they happen, so the record exists from the moment something occurs rather than being written up later from scraps of paper.

Alongside that, Complys has a RIDDOR check that helps you work out whether an incident is likely to be reportable. Instead of trying to hold the whole of the regulations in your head during a stressful moment, you record what happened and the check helps you see whether it looks like a reportable matter under RIDDOR. It is there to support your judgement and point you in the right direction, and you should still confirm against current HSE guidance for anything serious or borderline.

Just as importantly, Complys keeps your records in one place so they are there when you need them. Your accident entries and your incident records sit together, which means that when an inspector asks, when a claim comes in months later, or when a short absence turns into an over-seven-day injury, you are not hunting through drawers and email chains. The record is where you left it. For a busy construction firm juggling several jobs at once, having reportable incidents in construction logged consistently and stored safely takes a real weight off.

Getting reporting right, without the dread

RIDDOR feels heavy until you break it into its parts, and then it becomes manageable. Know who the responsible person is before anything happens. Know the categories of what is reportable under RIDDOR, and keep the over seven day injury and its counting rules front of mind. Respect the time limits, ten days for most reports and fifteen days for over-seven-day injuries, and treat everything as urgent from the start. Report to the HSE through their online system, keep your RIDDOR records, and keep a proper accident book that protects people's private information.

Do those things consistently and RIDDOR stops being something that catches you out and becomes just another part of running a safe, well-organised site. That is the whole aim: not fear, but a clear routine you can rely on when it matters. If you want that routine built in, you can start with Complys for free, log your first accident, and try the RIDDOR check on a real entry to see how it fits the way you work. Remember that this article is general guidance, and for your exact situation the current HSE guidance is always the authority to check.