RIDDOR and Lone Workers: What Employers Must Report

Por Syed Muhammad Daud Rizvi — Cofundador da TapOkie Work. Constrói check-ins por visita e monitorização auditável para trabalhadores isolados em pequenas equipas — sem lock-in enterprise.

RIDDOR requires certain work-related deaths, injuries, diseases, and dangerous occurrences to be reported to the HSE. Lone workers are covered the same as anyone else — delayed discovery can make notification harder, which is why visit records and escalation paths matter for evidence and timely reporting.

What RIDDOR is

RIDDOR stands for the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (SI 2013/1471). It requires employers and the self-employed to report certain workplace incidents to the Health and Safety Executive. The purpose is to allow HSE to monitor workplace safety trends, target inspections, and investigate serious incidents.

RIDDOR reporting is a legal duty. Failure to report a reportable incident is a criminal offence.

Why RIDDOR matters specifically for lone workers

Lone working creates a particular challenge: when something goes wrong, nobody is there to witness it. This creates risk at two points. First, the incident may not be detected quickly. Second, when it is reported, the employer may not have complete information about what happened, when, and what monitoring was in place.

Both of these are exactly the situations where good monitoring records matter. An employer who can show a timestamped visit history, alert logs, and escalation records is in a fundamentally stronger position than one who cannot.

What must be reported

RIDDOR requires employers to report the following categories of incident.

Work-related deaths. Any death of a worker or a member of the public caused by a work-related accident must be reported to HSE. This includes a lone worker who dies as a result of an incident during lone working.

Specified injuries to workers. These are listed in Schedule 1 of RIDDOR and include fractures other than fingers, thumbs, and toes; amputations; any injury likely to lead to permanent loss of sight or reduction in sight; any crush injury to the head or torso causing damage to the brain or internal organs; any burn injury covering more than ten percent of the body or causing significant damage to the eyes, respiratory system, or vital organs; and any degree of scalping requiring hospital treatment; any loss of consciousness caused by head injury or asphyxia; any other injury arising from working in an enclosed space which leads to hypothermia or heat-induced illness.

Over-seven-day incapacitation injuries. If a worker is away from work or unable to do their full normal duties for more than seven consecutive days (not counting the day of the injury), the incident must be reported within 15 days.

Dangerous occurrences. These are listed in Schedule 2 and include incidents such as collapse, overturning, or failure of load-bearing equipment, and certain electrical incidents.

Work-related diseases. A smaller category; includes carpal tunnel syndrome, cramp in the hand or forearm, occupational dermatitis, hand-arm vibration syndrome, occupational asthma, tendonitis in the hand or forearm, and any occupational disease affecting a diver. Relevant for specific lone working contexts such as field engineers or agricultural workers.

How to report

Reports are made online through the HSE website at hse.gov.uk/riddor. For fatal and specified injuries, HSE also operates a telephone service at 0345 300 9923. Death, specified injuries, and dangerous occurrences must be reported immediately. Over-seven-day incapacitation must be reported within 15 days.

Records you must keep

RIDDOR requires employers to keep a record of any incident reportable under the regulations, plus any over-three-day incapacitation injury (even though these are no longer required to be reported to HSE). Records must be kept for at least three years.

In practice, employers should also retain their internal investigation records: what monitoring was in place, when alerts were raised, what action was taken, and the outcome. This record is separate from RIDDOR but supports any investigation.

What counts as work-related for lone workers

An incident is work-related if it arises from the work activity itself, the working environment, or equipment or processes used at work. For a lone worker, the question is whether the incident occurred in the course of their lone working activity.

A care worker who slips on a client's wet floor during a visit is covered. A care worker who injures themselves in their own home before leaving for a visit is generally not.

A lone estate agent who is assaulted during a viewing is covered. The violence arose from the work activity: attending a viewing alone.

A lone worker who has a medical emergency during a visit and is not found for an extended period may have a secondary outcome (delayed medical response) that is relevant to the working conditions and monitoring controls, even if the primary cause was a pre-existing condition.

The connection between monitoring and RIDDOR

If a lone worker has an incident and is not found quickly, the delay in finding them may become a factor in any investigation of whether adequate monitoring controls were in place. An employer who cannot show when alerts were raised, what the escalation chain was, and what action was taken is in a weaker position.

TapOkie Work logs every session start, end, missed check-out alert, and SOS with timestamps. That log is exportable as PDF, CSV, or Excel and is available as part of the history for any visit. It is not a substitute for a RIDDOR report, but it is exactly the kind of record that supports an employer's account of events and of the controls that were in place.

Practical steps

Review your RIDDOR procedure alongside your lone worker policy. Check that whoever is responsible for RIDDOR reporting knows which category incidents fall into and how to report them. Confirm that your monitoring records are exportable and retained for at least three years. Include RIDDOR awareness in lone worker training so workers understand why they should report near-misses internally even if the incident does not meet the RIDDOR threshold.

Related reading

• UK lone worker legislation: employer duties explained
• Lone worker risk assessment for small teams
• How to write a lone worker policy
• Compliance hub