Most near misses never reach RIDDOR. That does not let you off the hook. The law still expects you to record and investigate every one, and the firms that skip it tend to find out the hard way.
Guide · Health & Safety
Near miss reporting, done right.
Most near misses are not reportable under RIDDOR, but they still must be investigated and recorded. Here is what the law requires and why so many go unreported.
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The law
What RIDDOR actually requires
RIDDOR 2013 covers a defined list of dangerous occurrences in Schedule 2: crane or lifting appliance failure, scaffold collapse above five metres, building collapse, and severe biological release. The list is exhaustive. A near miss outside it is not a RIDDOR report, but the Management Regulations 1999 still require you to record and investigate it. RIDDOR records must be kept at least three years.
Why reports go missing
Three causes dominate
- 1
Admin friction
A worker in PPE on site rarely stops to find a form. Get on with the job wins, and detail fades with every hour of delay.
- 2
Fear of blame
Workers worry a report triggers discipline. Only visible evidence that reports lead to fixes, not punishment, shifts that fear.
- 3
Normalisation
On a busy site near misses become ordinary. That is just how it is reliably predicts a serious accident waiting to happen.
Lower friction
Reporting over WhatsApp
WhatsApp is already on site workers' phones. A structured workflow captures a voice note and photo at the location, with no form, no app install and no login. Quickler routes the timestamped record to the office dashboard immediately, and exports to PDF and CSV for review or RIDDOR submissions where applicable.
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Reduce reporting friction this week
Quickler runs structured site workflows over WhatsApp. No app install. Setup in under a week.
The short version
- Most near misses are not reportable under RIDDOR, but you must still investigate and record them.
- RIDDOR does cover listed dangerous occurrences: scaffold collapse, crane overturning and similar events in Schedule 2.
- A good near miss record lowers the odds of a future accident hitting RIDDOR threshold.
- Low reporting rates are almost always a friction and culture problem, not a gap in legal awareness.
- The fastest fix is removing friction, and that can happen this week.
The law
What RIDDOR actually requires
The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR) set out what employers must report to the Health and Safety Executive. Near misses sit in one category: dangerous occurrences.
A dangerous occurrence is a defined event listed in Schedule 2. On construction sites the relevant ones include the collapse, overturning or failure of a crane or lifting appliance; the collapse or partial collapse of a scaffold more than five metres high; any unintended collapse or partial collapse of a building or structure; and the accidental release of a biological agent likely to cause severe illness.
The list is exhaustive, not illustrative. A near miss outside it is not a RIDDOR report. It still cannot be ignored. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require employers to assess and control risks, and a near miss is proof a risk has materialised. RIDDOR records must be kept for at least three years.
Definitions
What a near miss actually is
A near miss is an unplanned event that did not cause injury, illness or damage, but could have. A load swinging past a worker head. A scaffold board kicking out underfoot and caught in time. An excavator reversing towards an unmarked trench edge and stopped just short.
HSE guidance separates near misses from hazard observations. A hazard observation is a static condition: a loose handhold, missing edge protection, a wet surface with no warning sign. A near miss is a sequence, where injury was only avoided by luck or quick reaction. Both are worth recording, but a near miss carries more urgency because the hazard chain was already live.
The Heinrich Triangle, which puts 300 near misses at the base for every fatal accident, is contested as a precise ratio. The principle holds. Near misses are leading indicators. They tell you where the next injury is coming from before it arrives.
The record
What a good record contains
A good near miss record is short but complete. Get these fields down while the memory is fresh, not at the end of the week.
Minimum fields for a near miss record
- Date, time and precise location on site
- Description of what happened, in plain language
- Who was involved or in the vicinity
- What could have caused injury or damage
- Immediate action taken on the day
- Name and role of the person completing the record
- Follow-up action required and the person responsible
- Date follow-up was completed
Photos are valuable. A written description of a scaffold board condition runs to fifty words and stays ambiguous. A photo settles it and takes two seconds on site. Voice notes work well for the narrative. Speaking a description while still at the location beats writing it up later from memory. But a voice note must be transcribed and attached to a structured record. A clip buried in a phone is not a retrievable safety record.
The blockers
Why near misses go unreported
HSE surveys show near miss reporting rates run low against how often events actually happen. Three causes dominate.
Admin friction. The person involved is on site, working, often in PPE, with no easy access to a form or computer. Stop the job, find the form, fill it in, hand it over reliably loses to get on with the job. The longer the gap, the thinner the detail.
Fear of blame. Workers expect a report to trigger discipline or mark them as careless. That fear survives even where a firm states it runs a no-blame culture. Only visible evidence that reports lead to fixes, not punishment, shifts it.
Normalisation. On a busy site near misses pile up and start to feel ordinary. That is just how it is is one of the most reliable predictors of a serious accident waiting to happen.
Friction is the most actionable lever. Culture takes years. A simpler reporting route can be live this week.
The fix
Lower-friction reporting in practice
The standard paper form asks a worker to find it, fill it in legibly and hand it over. Every step is a drop-off point. Dedicated safety apps need an install, a login and the confidence to navigate a form under time pressure. Adoption is patchy and worse among subcontract trades.
WhatsApp is already on site workers phones. Reporting a near miss with a voice note and a photo through a structured workflow, one that captures the right fields and routes the record to the office, removes the form entirely. The worker describes what happened while standing at the spot. The record is timestamped and visible to the safety manager at once.
Quickler provides structured WhatsApp workflows for field teams. Workers complete near miss records through a normal WhatsApp chat. No app install. No login. The office sees results in a dashboard as they land, and records export to PDF and CSV for internal review or RIDDOR submissions where applicable.
The stakes
When you cannot produce records
HSE inspectors can ask to see near miss records during a routine inspection or after a notifiable incident. The absence of records is not neutral. It is evidence the safety management system is not working.
If a serious accident happens and the investigation turns up a prior near miss that was never recorded or acted on, the employer liability is materially worse. The near miss was a warning. Ignoring it is a failure of the management duty under Regulation 5 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.
The bar is not perfection. It is a functioning system with genuine evidence of use. A stack of near miss reports, most acted on and closed out, shows the system works. Zero reports on a busy site shows the opposite. See how Quickler works.
Questions, answered
Is a near miss reportable under RIDDOR?
Most are not. RIDDOR requires reporting of dangerous occurrences, the specific events listed in Schedule 2 such as scaffold collapse or crane overturning. A near miss that does not match a listed dangerous occurrence is not a RIDDOR report, but employers still carry a management duty to investigate and record findings.
How long must near miss records be kept?
RIDDOR records must be kept for at least three years. Near miss records below the RIDDOR threshold have no statutory minimum, but HSE guidance recommends keeping them as part of your health and safety management system. Many firms hold them for the project duration plus three years.
What should a near miss record contain?
Date, time and precise location; a description of what happened; who was involved or nearby; what could have caused injury; immediate action taken; and the name of the person completing the record. Photos and voice notes add useful detail, especially for complex site conditions.
Why do workers not report near misses?
Three reasons dominate: admin friction, where filling in a form after a near miss takes time nobody budgets for; fear of blame; and normalisation on busy sites where near misses feel routine. Reducing friction produces faster results than culture change.
Construction and site safety