Health and safety at work

Complaints about health and safety at work

The law requires businesses to take reasonable steps to make sure that their staff and other people who use their premises are not exposed to risks to their health and safety.

Concerns about health and safety at a workplace

If you have concerns about health and safety at work, first you should discuss your concerns with the employer or person in control of the premises or contact a union or employee representative and try to resolve the matter.

If there is no improvement and there remains a safety risk, you can report it to the relevant enforcing authority.

Health and Safety Executive responsibilities

Contact the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) if you have health and safety concerns involving the following types of businesses or activities:

• Factories
• Farms
• Building sites
• Mines
• Schools and colleges
• Fairgrounds
• Gas, electricity and water systems
• Hospitals and nursing homes
• Central and local government premises
• Offshore installations
• Domestic premises

Reading Borough Council responsibilities

Reading Borough Council enforces health and safety at a range of high street type premises including:

• Offices (except government offices)
• Shops
• Hotels
• Restaurants
• Leisure premises
• Nurseries and playgroups
• Pubs and clubs
• Museums (privately owned)
• Places of worship
• Sheltered accommodation and care homes

If you have concerns about health and safety in the workplace that you have been unable to resolve, you can report them using to us using the health and safety complaint form.

Reporting Incidents, Accidents and Diseases

The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR) places a legal duty to report certain accidents or incidents at places of work to the relevant enforcing authority. This duty falls to:

• Employers
• Self-employed people
• People in control of premises

RIDDOR applies to all work activities, but not all incidents are reportable. You must report:

• Deaths
• Certain major injuries
• Certain dangerous occurrences (near misses)
• Some occupational diseases
• Injuries where an employee or self-employed person is away from work or unable to perform their normal work duties for more than seven consecutive days
• Injuries to members of the public or people not at work, where they have been taken from the scene of an accident to hospital

You can find out more about RIDDOR, and what is and isn’t reportable on the Health and Safety Executive (HSE): RIDDOR – Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations – HSE

How to report and accident or incident

You should report an accident or incident at work via the HSE website: Make a RIDDOR report – HSE

To report a death at work you should call the HSE’s incident contact centre on 0345 300 9923 (opening hours Monday to Friday, 8.30am to 5pm).

Why is reporting accidents important?

• Reporting certain accidents and ill health at work is a legal requirement
• The information enables us to identify where and how risks arise, and enables us to investigate serious accidents
• We can provide advice to you and your employer on how to reduce injury and ill health in your workplace

If you have a general query about health and safety please contact the Food and Safety Team.