Accident book

The record of every workplace injury, however minor, required under social security law and kept for three years, with entries stored so that personal details are protected.

Every employer with ten or more employees, and the occupier of any factory, mine or quarry, must keep an accident book in which any injury at work can be recorded, by the injured person or someone on their behalf. Smaller employers keep one anyway because it is the record that supports a RIDDOR report, an insurance claim or a defence. The entry records who was injured, when and where, what happened, the injury and the treatment, and who recorded it. Since data protection law applies, entries are stored so that one person's details cannot be read by another; the standard B1510 book has tear-out pages for that reason.

Entries are kept for at least three years from the date of the accident. The accident book is the first thing an HSE inspector or an insurer's solicitor asks to see, and a book with no entries on a busy site is read as a site where injuries are not recorded rather than a site where none happen. Digital incident systems replace the book if they capture the same information and protect it the same way.

Where it comes from

Questions people ask