Employers in Great Britain reported 59,219 non-fatal injuries to employees under RIDDOR in 2024/25 (HSE 2025). The Health and Safety Executive’s own statistics on non-fatal injuries at work estimate that employers report only around half of the injuries the regulations cover. HSE doesn’t say where the other half goes.
One likely contributor is built into how multi-site organisations work. The person who sees the accident is rarely the person who files the report. A supervisor deals with the casualty and fills in the accident book, while the manager who holds the reporting duty works days at another site.
Suppose a food distribution group runs depots in Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Germany and the Gulf. At 22:30 on a Friday, a contractor repairing a conveyor at its Midlands depot falls from a platform and leaves by ambulance at 22:50. The night supervisor completes the accident book and briefs the morning shift lead at 06:00. The group’s head of health and safety, who files every statutory report, hears about it at 09:00 on Monday.
By then the questions have piled up. Was the arm broken? Who employs the contractor, and has anyone told them? Would the same fall at the group’s depot in the United States or the UAE already be overdue?
The question of who is responsible for reporting RIDDOR incidents has a short legal answer and a longer practical one. The legal answer is a named duty holder. The practical answer is a route that gets the facts from the night shift to that person in time.
Who Is Responsible For Reporting RIDDOR?
The person responsible for reporting under RIDDOR is the “responsible person” defined in regulation 3 of the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013. For an injured employee, the responsible person is the employee’s employer. For a self-employed person or a member of the public, it is whoever controls the premises where the accident happened.
HSE’s guidance on who should report under RIDDOR says employers must report for their employees wherever they are working. It also says reports should only be submitted by the responsible person, so an injured worker, a colleague or a passer-by is not expected to use the reporting system.
An employer is usually a company, so the duty is delegated to a role. In the distribution group it sits with the head of health and safety at head office. The duty holder was at home when the contractor fell, and depended entirely on someone who was there.
How Quickly Must A Serious Workplace Injury Be Reported?
In Great Britain, a death or a specified injury to a worker must be notified to the enforcing authority by the quickest practicable means without delay, and a report must follow within 10 days of the incident. Schedule 1 of RIDDOR 2013 sets that procedure. An injury that keeps a worker from routine work for more than seven consecutive days must be reported within 15 days of the accident.
Specified injuries are listed in regulation 4. They include a bone fracture diagnosed by a registered medical practitioner, other than to a finger, thumb or toe, an amputation, and loss of consciousness caused by head injury or asphyxia. Going to hospital is not on the list for a worker, so the supervisor can’t tell on the night whether the accident is reportable. The diagnosis decides it. At the Midlands depot it came at 01:40, when the hospital confirmed a fractured forearm and admitted the contractor for surgery, and the only person from the site who knew was the colleague who had gone with him.
Other countries set shorter clocks. The table gives the general rule in six places where the group operates, as orientation and not as legal advice, and sector, state and provincial rules can differ. The US row comes from OSHA’s reporting rule, 29 CFR 1904.39, the Ontario row from the province’s guidance on reporting workplace incidents and illnesses, and the other sources are listed at the end.
Where | Who is told | How fast | What the rule says about the clock |
Great Britain | HSE or the local authority | Without delay for a death or specified injury, then a report within 10 days | “Within 10 days of the incident” |
United States (federal OSHA) | OSHA | 8 hours for a death. 24 hours for an in-patient hospitalisation, an amputation or the loss of an eye | From the event, or from when it is reported “to you or to any of your agent(s)” |
Ontario, Canada | The labour ministry, the joint health and safety committee or representative, and the union if there is one | Immediately for a death or critical injury, then a written report within 48 hours | “Immediately” |
United Arab Emirates | The Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation (MoHRE) | 48 hours for an injury or death at the workplace | “Within 48 hours from the incident” |
Germany | The employer’s accident insurance institution | Three days, where a worker is killed or unable to work for more than three days | From when the employer learns of the accident |
Saudi Arabia | The General Organization for Social Insurance (GOSI) | Three days, for workers covered by social insurance | From when the worker notifies the employer or the employer “takes note of its occurrence” |
Head office heard about the Midlands accident more than 58 hours after it happened. At the group’s depots in the United States, Ontario or the UAE, the first deadline for the same fall would already have passed. A fractured arm is a critical injury in Ontario, and a hospital admission for treatment triggers the OSHA rule.
Does The Reporting Clock Wait Until Head Office Finds Out?
No reporting rule read for this article starts the clock when head office finds out. In Great Britain the 10 days run from the incident, and in the UAE the 48 hours run from the incident. In the United States the period runs from the event, or from the moment it is reported to the employer or to any of the employer’s agents.
Germany and Saudi Arabia tie the period to the employer learning of the accident. Whether a night supervisor’s knowledge counts as the employer’s knowledge is a legal question for local advisers. A cautious safety lead plans as though it does, because the supervisor knew at 22:30 on Friday.
For the distribution group, the weekend was the reporting window. The 58 hours between the fall and the Monday phone call were running on at least four of the six clocks in the table, and nobody in the group knew.
Who Reports When The Injured Person Is A Contractor Or Agency Worker?
For a contractor, the responsible person depends on employment status, which the host site often doesn’t know. Under regulation 3, an injured employee of a contracting firm is reported by that firm, as the employer. A self-employed contractor is reported by whoever controls the premises, which here is the distribution group.
Agency workers are harder. HSE’s guidance says the agency is the legal employer in many cases and the host business holds the duty in others. It asks agencies to make sure responsibility for reporting under RIDDOR is clearly assigned, and understood by host businesses and workers. In the United States, OSHA says the employer that provides the day-to-day supervision of a temporary worker makes the report.
So the host site has a job even when the report is someone else’s. The practical step is to tell the injured person’s employer quickly and note the time. The earlier post on duty of care at client sites covers the same handover from the visiting firm’s side.
Who Reports A Workplace Injury To The Regulator On A Night Shift?
On a night shift, the report to the regulator is still made by the responsible person or someone acting with their authority, and the supervisor’s job is to reach that person. Ask the night supervisor in the scenario who is responsible for reporting RIDDOR and the answer would be “head office”. That is correct, and no help at 22:30 on a Friday.
The authorities can be reached out of hours. HSE takes RIDDOR reports online at any time, OSHA runs a 24-hour hotline and Ontario’s Health and Safety Contact Centre operates around the clock. The difficulty at 22:30 is internal, because nobody on site knows who decides.
The escalation itself is one short message, sent before the supervisor goes back to the shift. For example: “Injury at Midlands depot, Friday 22:30. Contractor fell about two metres from the conveyor platform. Conscious, arm injury, left by ambulance at 22:50. Works for the maintenance contractor, employer not yet told. Area isolated. Please acknowledge and call the night supervisor.”
Nothing in that message says whether the injury is reportable. It gives the on-call safety contact enough to start finding out, and it asks for an acknowledgement so the supervisor knows it has landed.
Is An Accident Book Entry The Same As A RIDDOR Report?
An accident book entry is a record the organisation keeps, and a RIDDOR report is a notification sent to the enforcing authority. The common belief that the site will report it runs the two together. The night supervisor in the scenario followed the site procedure in full, and the procedure ended at a record.
For most accidents the belief does no harm. HSE says an accident that keeps a worker off normal duties for more than three days only has to be recorded, and that the accident book is enough for that. Most entries never need to leave the site.
The belief fails for the few accidents that matter most, and those carry the shortest clocks. A death, a fracture or a hospital admission sets off an external deadline measured in hours or days. The accident book can’t tell anyone. It waits to be read.
RIDDOR also asks for a record of the report itself. Under regulation 12 the responsible person keeps records for at least three years, including the date the incident was first notified and the method used. A late notification therefore shows up in the organisation’s own file.
What Should A Night-Shift Injury Escalation Route Include?
A night-shift injury escalation route needs six parts: a trigger the supervisor can apply without judgement, a named on-call safety contact, a fixed message, an acknowledgement, an owner for the hospital outcome and a check on who employs the injured person. Each one closes a gap that opened in the scenario.
- Set triggers that need no judgement. An ambulance called, a suspected fracture, any loss of consciousness, an amputation or a death means escalate now. The supervisor decides whether to tell someone, never whether the injury is reportable.
- Name one on-call safety contact for each week, with a deputy, and put the rota where night supervisors will see it.
- Fix the message. Site, time, what happened, the person’s condition, who employs them, what has been made safe and a number to call back.
- Require an acknowledgement. If the on-call contact has not acknowledged within 15 minutes, the message goes to the deputy and then to the operations director.
- Give the hospital outcome an owner. A diagnosis or an admission can make an injury reportable hours later, so one person is asked to find out and pass it on.
- Confirm the employer and tell them. Record who was told, by whom and at what time, because the report may be theirs to make.
The 15 minutes is illustrative, and each organisation should set its own. Settling who is responsible for reporting RIDDOR, by name and for every week of the rota, takes an afternoon. It can’t be done by a supervisor at 22:30 with a casualty on the floor.
A group that works across borders can use the same route in every country, with a one-page deadline sheet for each that names the authority, the threshold and the clock. Tuesday’s post on reporting one incident to regulators in several countries covers who coordinates when several authorities are involved, and yesterday’s post on NIS2 incident reporting covers who supplies each fact once a report is under way.
Can Employee Safety Software Escalate An Injury Out Of Hours?
Employee safety software can carry the first alert from the shop floor to the people who need it, at any hour, and record when each of them acknowledged. A phone call does the same job when the right person picks up. The scenario exposed the weakness of calls and paper: manual processes create delays and make an accurate incident record hard to keep.
Crises Control is an operational incident coordination platform, and its employee safety software is built around the SOS Panic Button in the mobile app. An employee presses and holds the button to request emergency assistance. The alert goes to authorised responders with the employee’s name, the time and a GPS location where location sharing is enabled, and it automatically creates an incident.
For the night supervisor, that replaces the search for a phone number. Where the on-call safety contact is among the authorised responders, the person who owns the statutory report learns of the accident at the same moment as the first aider. The incident record captures which responders were notified and when they acknowledged, which gives the escalation a time at both ends.
From there the response is coordinated through Incident Manager, and the workplace safety software page describes how actions are assigned and tracked. Every notification, acknowledgement, task and status change is timestamped and written to the incident record, which the incident reporting software page covers. Location is tied to the emergency event, and the platform does not track employees continuously in the background.
The software does not decide whether an injury is reportable. It does not work out who employs the injured person, and it does not submit anything to HSE, OSHA or any other authority. Those decisions and reports stay with the organisation’s own people, and the platform’s role is to get the alert to them and keep the record.
What Would Monday Have Looked Like?
Run the Friday again with the route in place. The supervisor raises the alert at 22:34 and the on-call safety manager acknowledges at 22:41. By 23:10 the maintenance contractor’s duty manager has been told, and the time is on the record. At 01:40 the colleague at the hospital passes on the diagnosis, and the two firms settle who reports on Saturday morning. On Monday the head of health and safety opens the record of an incident that was handled, with the notification already made. Getting the alert to the right person was the first step, and the coordination that followed is what put the report in on time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is the responsible person for a RIDDOR report?
The answer to who is responsible for reporting RIDDOR incidents is the responsible person defined in regulation 3 of RIDDOR 2013. For an injured employee that is the employer, and for a self-employed person or a member of the public it is whoever controls the premises. HSE says reports should only be submitted by the responsible person.
How quickly must a serious workplace injury be reported?
In Great Britain, a death or specified injury must be notified without delay by the quickest practicable means, with a report within 10 days of the incident. Federal OSHA in the United States requires a report within 8 hours of a death and within 24 hours of an in-patient hospitalisation, an amputation or the loss of an eye. Requirements vary by country, state and sector, so each should be checked against the primary text.
Who reports a workplace injury to the regulator on a night shift?
The responsible person, or someone acting with their authority, makes the report whatever the hour. The night supervisor’s task is to pass the facts to that person at once, through a named on-call safety contact and a fixed message. Deciding who is responsible for reporting RIDDOR incidents, by name and with a deputy, is done before the shift starts.
Is an accident book entry the same as a RIDDOR report?
No. An accident book entry is a record kept by the organisation, and a RIDDOR report is a notification to the enforcing authority. HSE says an over-three-day injury only needs to be recorded, while deaths, specified injuries and over-seven-day injuries must be reported.
Does an SOS alert count as reporting an injury to HSE?
No. An SOS alert raised through employee safety software such as Crises Control tells the organisation’s authorised responders that someone needs help, and it creates an incident record. Deciding whether the injury is reportable and submitting the report remain the responsibility of the organisation.
This article was drafted with AI assistance and reviewed by the Crises Control team. Featured image: AI-generated.
