	RURAL SAFETY ADVICE
	"Common Sense Matters"

News (Spring 2012)

Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR) Change – 6 April 2012

From 6 April 2012, subject to Parliamentary approval, RIDDOR’s over three day injury reporting requirement will change. From then the trigger point will increase from over three days’ to over seven days’ incapacitation (not counting the day on which the accident happened).

Incapacitation means that the worker is absent or is unable to do work that they would reasonably be expected to do as part of their normal work.

Employers and others with responsibilities under RIDDOR must still keep a record of all over three day injuries – if the employer has to keep an accident book, then this record will be enough.

The deadline by which the over seven day injury must be reported will increase to 15 days from the day of the accident.

New guidance that explains the change will be available to download from the HSE website on 16 January 2012.

HSE Statistics Summary (www.hse.gov.uk)

With high numbers and rates of fatal injury to workers, agriculture, forestry and fishing is the riskiest industry sector. Fewer than one in a hundred employees work in agriculture, but about one in ten fatal injuries to employees are in the sector.

In 2010/11 there were:

34 fatal injuries to workers. The average over the previous five years was 35. This is a third lower than in 1981, but the rate is much higher than in any other major industry group (RIDDOR);
eight fatal injuries to members of the public. The average over the previous five years was five. Three of these fatalities were to persons aged 16 or under (RIDDOR);
both major and over three day injury rates were lower than the previous five year averages, but we estimate that well under half of all reportable injuries are actually reported (RIDDOR);
the LFS suggests a downward trend in reportable non-fatal injury rates.