RIDDOR is the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013: the law requiring the “responsible person” at a workplace to report certain deaths, injuries and incidents to the HSE. The full text is at legislation.gov.uk and reports are filed at hse.gov.uk/riddor.
The play venue essentials
For staff: specified injuries (fractures except fingers, thumbs and toes, amputations, crush injuries to head or torso, serious burns, loss of consciousness from head injury) reported without delay, and any work-related injury keeping an employee off normal duties more than seven consecutive days reported within 15 days. For visitors, including children: reportable when the person goes directly from your venue to hospital for treatment and the accident arose from your work activity (equipment condition, premises, supervision) rather than the ordinary risk of play. Most play injuries fail that second test and are not reportable, though all of them belong in your incident records.
Getting it right
The two classic mistakes are missing the over-seven-day staff rule and treating every ambulance callout as reportable. Our RIDDOR guide works through six judgement calls, the deadlines table, and the record-keeping (see also the accident book duty) that stands behind every report.