HSE to change rules on reporting workplace injuries

A change to the rules on reporting workplace injuries will come into effect tomorrow (April 6) as the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) aims to reduce the administrative burden on businesses.

The changes to the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) will mean that employers only have to report injuries that keep workers away from their normal duties for more than seven consecutive days an increase from the previous three day reporting period.

However concerns have been raised by some in the waste industry that the changes could have a negative impact on health and safety standards of some businesses.

Chris Jones, chair of the Waste Industry Safety and Health (WISH) forum, told letsrecycle.com: Just changing the reporting system wont change the number of accidents that occur. The waste industry responded to the consultation on moving to a seven-day reporting system and said that it would not be beneficial.

Mr Jones said that while those that operate high standards of health and safety compliance will remain largely unaffected by the changes, those that record and report only the bare minimum could end up being more lax in their approach to health and safety.

Most organisations should be recording a lot more than what is required under RIDDOR if they meaningfully want to measure and manage their safety. If theyre doing that then it wont make much difference.

For those organisations that are only recording what they have to record then asking them to record less means they are less likely to tackle the problem, he said.

Mr Jones also raised concerns about the possible discrepancy in the data following on from the change. He said: One of the things that we have asked the HSE to do is to measure comparative rates to back statistics otherwise we will see a massive disjoint. Its important we look back and find out what incidents happened and why and how we can manage the risks so its important that we get the continuity.

Changes

The changes to RIDDOR will also see the amount of time for employers to report an incident increase from ten to 15 days from the date of the incident. RIDDOR is the law that requires employers and other people in control of work premises to report and keep records of work-related deaths, serious injuries, cases of diagnosed industrial disease and near miss incidents.

The changes were recommended in the government commissioned report Common sense, common safety. A document published on August 17 2011 outlining responses to the consultation, stated that some respondents felt that health and safety standards of some organisations may be reduced and that decreasing the number of reports could reduce the opportunity for duty holders and regulators to spot incidents that could have resulted in more serious injuries.

However as there was a clear majority in support of the proposed change it was approved.
Commenting on the changes Stephen Freeland, policy advisor at the Environmental Services Association, said: ESA notes changes to the RIDDOR reporting regime which extends the period for reporting over-3-day injuries to seven days. However, employers are likely to maintain records of over-3-day injuries and this will continue to be used by ESA in monitoring performance against our accident reduction targets.

Under RIDDOR employers will still be required to keep a record of all over three day injuries.

HSE

Judith Hackitt, HSE chair, explained the reason behind the move. She said: The change to the RIDDOR regulations will cut paperwork, help employers manage sickness absence and ensure that the reporting system is focused on risks which have resulted in more serious injury.

The HSE said that changes will see a 30% reduction in the number of incidents that must be reported by law an average of around 30,000 fewer reports a year.

The HSE insisted that the reduction in paperwork would not have a significant impact on its investigation work.

A spokeswoman told letsrecycle.com: It will not have a significant impact on HSEs enforcement and investigation work due to the very low level of investigations for O3D injury reports at present. HSE targets its interventions based on the severity of the risk. This would not change, as our analysis shows the same causal trends for over 7 day injuries as for over 3 day injuries.