HSE changes RIDDOR (w.e.f.

28 February 2012)
Issues brief
February 2012

Casualty

Important changes to methods of reporting

An important change that has not been as widely reported are the changes to the way reportable incidents can be submitted to the HSE. From 28 February 2012 they will no longer be accepting RIDDOR notifications from systems or individuals who email their reportable incidents to the HSE.

What does this mean?

From 28 February organisations will only be able to use the RIDDOR reporting service on the HSEs website or a system that is XML formatted, which mirrors the HSEs website and can therefore communicate to the reporting system.

The Comprehensive Spending Review undertaken by the government in late 2010, concluded that the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) budget would be reduced by 35%. Like many other public sector organisations the HSE has been working to streamline its processes to provide a more efficient service. This Issues brief highlights the main changes to the reporting requirements and reporting method in relation to the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) 1995.

What should you do?

If you use the HSEs website for reporting RIDDORs you dont need to take any further action. If however, you currently use a health and safety management system or an external portal to report your RIDDORs you need to ensure that it is XML compatible with the HSE system. The risk if it is not, is that from 28 February your organisation could be in breach of RIDDOR regulations leading to an investigation and/or prosecution.

What is QBE doing?

Timely RIDDOR reporting is a crucial facet to identifying and providing early intervention to injured employees and effective risk management. QBE has completed an upgrade of our RIDDOR reporting system to be not only compatible with the HSE system but also ensure our policyholders can continue to simultaneously report a RIDDOR and refer to rehabilitation. QBE will be providing further guidance on the impact of the changes to RIDDOR reporting in the next couple of months, but if you have any questions regarding these changes please contact your underwriter, rehabilitation consultant or risk manager.

Changes
Where an employee is injured and absent from work as a result of an accident, the period of absence that will now trigger an employer to file an accident report to the relevant enforcing authority or HSE will rise from the current 3 to 7 days Employers will have 15 rather than 10 days from the date of the accident to report relevant absences/accidents to the enforcing authority or HSE All injuries that lead to an absence of over 3 days will now legally only need to be recorded and not reported. It is important to emphasise to the person responsible for reporting and recording RIDDOR notifications that it is still an explicit legal requirement under the RIDDOR requirements 1995 to record injuries leading to an absence in excess of 3 days. They can be retained within an accident book and they MUST be retained for 3 years.

Further information
HSE Website: www.hse.gov.uk A brief guide to the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) http://www. hse.gov.uk/riddor/

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