Health and safety: companies may soon enjoy additional simplified reporting
When it comes to issues of health and safety at work, companies both large and small have long complained that compliance is made difficult by the complex reporting procedures required by the Health and Safety Executive. Now, the HSE has begun a three-month consultation process in an attempt to make those procedures both clearer and simpler. Any changes would likely apply to the reporting requirements for not only injuries suffered on the job, but also for diseases and other dangerous events that occur in the workplace.
The current law governing reporting is commonly known as RIDDOR, the Reporting of Injuries, Disease, and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995. Already, RIDDOR has been revised to change requirements for reporting injuries. Previously, any injury that kept a worker away from his or her regular duties for three days or more had to be reported. The changes, which went into effect this last April, increased that window to a seven day requirement. When it comes to health and safety at work, this means that only truly serious injuries would be subject to reporting requirements.
New changes being contemplated for RIDDOR are likely to be of particular use to the agricultural sector, reducing the burden that currently falls on farmers. Some information that now needs to be reported is, according to HSE consultation manager David Charnock, not “particularly useful to the regulators.”
Still, critics question if health and safety at work will suffer as a result of further changes.
