These threads are a daily occurrence The HSE are a government service (term used loosely) if you contact them they will help/ advise you regarding whether an injury/ disease/ dangerous occurrence et al is reportable, very straight forward and they are being paid by you/ us after all word of caution here though, they will almost always er on the side of caution and suggest you report.......

I don't have a problem with RIDDOR questions - it's such a badly written piece of legislation that the more questions there are with different circumstances, the more we learn from other people. This can only enhance our own knowledge especially, if like me, the last RIDDOR you did was over 8 years ago. This is a discussion forum and a lot of the people asking questions will not have been here before or may not have the wealth of experience that those of us have been in the game for a long time have, therefore, they seek advice. They also may not know about the search facility which, to be fair, when you bring up a search is confusing in it's own right! Subscribing to this forum is purely voluntary and helping people is likewise so if you don't like it, you don't have to get involved.

RIDDOR is a tricky piece of legislation as it is a mish-mash of legislation including bit inherited from the old Factories Act and other obscure items. It has to satisfy the EU who wan t us to collect data so that we can benchmark our H&s against other member states (for now at least) and provide an entry of the enforcers. A lost of it taken as a whole does not make much sense, on the other hand who’d get rid of reporting requirements altogether?

Whilst (on the face of it) ringing the HSE appears to be a sound piece of advice, hands up all of those who would do so bearing in mind a) calling the HSE would likely flag an incident up, thus negating the "should I report it" argument anyway and b) the cost of FFI should they decide to investigate. As the original poster suggested, they are almost certain to "err on the side of caution" and advise reporting in most cases, so there's not really much point is there ? May as well continue to ask the RIDDOR questions on this forum - and in doing so also continue to annoy the regulars ! :-)