After an accident: report, investigate, or both?

Within 10 days for most reportable incidents, and 15 days for over-seven-day injuries. Deaths, specified injuries to workers, dangerous occurrences and non-workers taken to hospital for treatment must be reported without delay, and the report must be received within 10 days. An injury that keeps a worker off normal duties for more than seven days must be reported within 15 days of the accident. Report a reportable occupational disease as soon as you receive the diagnosis (HSE).

No, but you must record it. An injury that keeps a worker off work, or off their normal duties, for more than three consecutive days must be recorded, for example in your accident book (regulation 12 of RIDDOR 2013). You only report it if it lasts more than seven consecutive days, not counting the day of the accident but counting weekends and rest days. Report it within 15 days of the accident (HSE).

Not as a specified injury. Fractures to fingers, thumbs and toes are left out of the list of specified injuries (regulation 4 of RIDDOR 2013). A broken finger does become reportable if it keeps the worker off work, or off their normal duties, for more than seven consecutive days. The amputation of a finger, thumb or toe is a specified injury, so it must be reported (HSE).

The responsible person, usually the employer. Employers must report incidents involving their employees, wherever they are working. The person in control of the premises must report certain injuries to members of the public and self-employed people there, and dangerous occurrences on the premises. A self-employed person must report their own reportable injury if it happens on their own premises or while working in someone's home (HSE).

Only if they are dangerous occurrences listed in Schedule 2 of RIDDOR 2013. On construction sites these include the collapse of a substantial part of a scaffold more than 5 metres high, lifting equipment collapsing or overturning or a load-bearing part failing, and plant or equipment touching an uninsulated overhead power line above 200 volts (HSE). You should still investigate other near misses and learn from them (HSE).

At least three years. You must record every reportable incident, reportable disease and over-three-day injury, and keep each entry for at least three years from the date it was made, at the workplace or your usual place of business (regulation 12 of RIDDOR 2013). You can keep a copy of the online report, and employers can use their accident book to record injuries (HSE).

Only if they are taken straight from the scene to hospital for treatment of their injury, or the accident is fatal. HSE says examinations and tests, such as X-rays, do not count as treatment, and a trip to hospital purely as a precaution, when no injury is apparent, does not need reporting. The accident must also be work-related, and the person in control of the premises makes the report.

No law uses the word, but in practice you need to. Employers must have arrangements to plan, organise, control, monitor and review their health and safety measures (regulation 5 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999), and HSE says investigations are an essential part of this. HSE also says you should investigate accidents, near misses and dangerous occurrences, and you must review any risk assessment that may no longer be valid (regulation 3(3)).