Slough Borough Council: Reporting an accident

Reporting an accident

If you are an employer, self employed or in control of premises you must report the accidents and incidents listed below.

If you have had an accident at work that was not reported by your employer this is a breach of RIDDOR and we need to know about it.

The following must be reported within the time scales stated.

Death or major injury

If there is an accident connected with work and:

your employee or a self-employed person working on your premises is killed or suffers a major injury (including as a result of physical violence) or
a member of the public is killed or taken to hospital

you must notify the Incident Contact Centre without delay (by telephone).

They will ask for brief details about your business, the injured person and the accident, and within 10 days you must send a completed accident report form.

Reportable major injuries include:

Fractures (other than to the fingers, thumbs or toes)
Amputation
Dislocation of the shoulder, hip, knee or spine, or
Loss of sight (temporary or permanent).

Over three day injury

If there is an accident connected with work (including an act of physical violence) and your employee, or a self employed person working on your premises, cannot work for 3 or more days you must send a completed accident report form to the enforcing authority within 10 days. An over three day injury is one which is not major but results in the injured person being away from work or unable to do their normal work for more than three days (including non working days, for example weekends)

Disease

If a doctor notifies you that your employee suffers from a reportable work related disease then you must send a completed disease report form to the enforcing authority.

Dangerous occurrence

If something happens which does not result in a reportable injury, but which clearly could have done, then it may be a dangerous occurrence which must be reported immediately by telephone.

Within 10 days you must send a completed accident report form.

Reportable dangerous occurrences include:

Certain collapses of plant or building and
Certain explosions including fire explosions caused by electrical short circuit.

Further guidance is available in the free booklet RIDDOR Everyone’s Guide to RIDDOR ’95 available free from HSE Book Finder or by contacting us.

All notifications should be made to the Incident Contact Centre, who will then contact the relevant enforcing authority to investigate. Please see Slough Borough Council's Accident Investigation Policy.

The contact details are as follows:

Telephone notifications: 0845 3009923
Fax notifications: 0845 3009924
Website: RIDDOR
Email: riddor@natbrit.com

Keeping an accident book

All companies with ten or more employees are legally required to keep an accident book under the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1979. All accidents in the workplace must recorded in the book and records must be kept for a minimum of three years after the last recorded entry.

In order to comply with data protection legislation, any individual recording an accident should not be able to access details of previous records.

Accident books are available from HSE Books. or by calling 08701 545500.

Statements of fact

A statement of fact is something that is known to be true, or something that can be verified as being true. From time to time, an individual who has been involved in an accident or their legal representative requests us to provide a statement of fact. This statement is purely a concise summary of the facts and may include details such as: