The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has begun a three-month consultation on proposed changes to the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) 1995.
Changes to RIDDOR were recommended in Lord Young’s Common sense, common safety review of health and safety published in 2010, which proposed increasing the threshold for reporting workplace injuries to seven days.
Under current rules, when an employee is absent from work for more than three days following an incident, employers are required to report the injury to the relevant authority – either the HSE or the local council. The proposed amendment increases this “over-three-day” period to more than seven consecutive days.
The change would align the incident reporting threshold with that for obtaining a fit note from a GP for sickness absence, and ensure that someone who has suffered a reportable injury has had a professional assessment, said the HSE.
The consultation paper is available online with the deadline for responses being 9 May.
