Hi Liam

My guess would be that with online notifications the time from HSE receiving an F2508 to any indication that an Inspector might visit or ask questions has probably increased.

The notifications all go to Bootle, then they would be filtered out to HSE Regional offices and land on the (virtual) desk of a Principal Inspector for a decision as to what, if any, follow up, is considered appropriate.

That Principal Inspector will take into consideration the workload of the Inspectors that report to them.

So, even if the F2508 is looked at in Bootle the day after receipt simply to identify where it has to go next, then you can probably assume that usually it will be another day before a local PI looks at it (they do have other things to do!!!).

Then if it is to be actioned it needs to go to an Inspector so that could easily be another day. Then that Inspector has to fit in any investigation into their workload and it might be weeks before they decide to visit. I can remember investigating one accident in a remote area where it was 2 months before I turned up.

Unless things have changed there are no set timescales for HSE deciding on what action to take - except for the most prominent incidents, particularly fatals, where there are external factors that may push a speedy response.

Bear in mind that the main reason why an organisation should investigate should usually be very different to HSE's decision to investigate.

The organisation needs to find out whether there are lessons to be learnt and that is only done effectively if done quickly - before the evidence is tainted and memories are influenced or otherwise fail.

In contrast, HSE will usually be considering any significant breaches that justify enforcement - if there are lots of rabbit holes that need to be probed, HSE will usually only be looking into one or two of those rabbit holes. Rarely is the role of HSE to primarily help the ORGANISATION (or perhaps a wider audience) identify what it should be doing.

Luckily I’ve not had to report a great many RIDDORS but in 20+ years I’ve only been contacted twice. Once by the HSE because I accidentally ticked the “death” box on the form, and once by a local authority when someone stumbled and sustained a “suspected fracture” of a foot bone none of us had ever heard of. In the latter case it was 1 (one) day after I’d submitted the report. This was by e-mail from a Council EHO who had a quick phone chat with the injured party the following week and concluded “no contributing factors”  then closed the investigation.

In terms of assessing and moving on reports from Bootle to the relevant enforcing office, I wonder if some of this is now done, if not by AI, by algorithms.

It occurs to me that these threads almost always talk about only the HSE in respect of RIDDOR. They still have the ‘higher risk’ activities but an increasing number of people are now employed in places that are the jurisdiction of their local authority, not the HSE: offices, warehouses, hospitality and so on. Pretty much everyone where I work is. In my experience managers often don’t know this so I’ve been putting little reminders in reports to various boards and committees to improve awareness.

We report approximately 10 over 7 day RIDDOR per year and have never had any investigated. They investigated a specified injury RIDDOR this year which was amputation of 3 fingers, but  even then they called and asked how much of the fingers had been lost to determine whether they were going to invesigate. Apparantly up to the first knuckle is deemed not worthy of an investigation.

If its an over 7 day report its unlikely you will hear anyhting at all.