CSCS Accident Reporting (RIDDOR) & First Aid Questions
What to report, near misses and first-aid arrangements.
These questions cover accident reporting (riddor) & first aid for the CITB Health, Safety and Environment (HS&E) test, the exam UK construction workers pass to get a CSCS card.
Accident Reporting (RIDDOR) & First Aid: practice quiz
- 20 questions · 30 minutes · pass mark 90%
- Answers and explanations are shown at the end, with every question to review.
- A fresh 20 questions every time, drawn from all 114 in this topic's bank.
- About 90 seconds a question, against about 54 in the real test, so there is time to think.
10 sample Accident Reporting (RIDDOR) & First Aid questions and answers
These 10 come from the 114 questions the practice quiz above draws from, written out with the correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Read them through when you want to revise rather than test yourself.
1. A worker is off routine work for more than seven consecutive days after a site accident. Under RIDDOR, who reports it and by when?
Answer: The responsible person in control of the premises, within 15 days of the accident
- A) The responsible person in control of the premises, within 15 days of the accident (correct answer)
- B) The injured worker, who must tell the enforcing authority within 15 days of returning
- C) The first aider who treated the injury, by the end of the day the accident happened
- D) Any supervisor who saw it happen, within seven days of the worker going off work
Why: Regulation 4 of RIDDOR 2013 covers an injury that stops a worker doing routine work for more than seven consecutive days, not counting the day of the accident, and requires the report to reach the enforcing authority within 15 days of the accident. Regulation 3 defines the responsible person as the one who, by carrying on an undertaking, was in control of the premises where the incident happened. The accident book is a separate thing: an entry in it is not a RIDDOR report, and making one does not discharge this duty.
2. What is the outside time limit in regulation 4(2) for sending the report of an over-seven-day injury?
Answer: Fifteen days measured from the date on which the accident happened
- A) Ten days from the accident, matching the deadline set for other reports
- B) Fifteen days measured from the date on which the accident happened (correct answer)
- C) Seven days counted from the day the worker first went off routine work
- D) Thirty days from the accident, or sooner if the enforcer asks for it
Why: Regulation 4(2) requires the report to be sent as soon as practicable and in any event within 15 days of the accident. The 10 day deadline in Schedule 1 applies to incidents reportable under regulations 4(1), 5, 6 and 7, so mixing the two up is a common error.
3. An employee's reportable injury later proves fatal. Over what period does regulation 6(3) require the employer to notify that death?
Answer: Where the death follows within one year of the date of the accident
- A) Where the death follows within six months of the accident that caused it
- B) Where the death follows within one year of the date of the accident (correct answer)
- C) Where the death follows within three years of the accident that caused it
- D) Where the death occurs at any time, however long after the first event
Why: Regulation 6(3) applies where an employee has suffered an injury reportable under regulation 4 which is a cause of death within one year of the date of the accident. The employer must then notify the relevant enforcing authority of the death in an approved manner without delay.
4. For a specified injury on an ordinary construction site, what does paragraph 1 of Part 1 of Schedule 1 require first?
Answer: Notification by the quickest practicable means, and without any delay
- A) Notification by the quickest practicable means, and without any delay (correct answer)
- B) A written report posted to the enforcing authority within ten days
- C) An entry in the accident book before anything else at all is done
- D) A report to the local authority, which enforces on all building sites
Why: Paragraph 1(1)(a) of Part 1 of Schedule 1 requires the responsible person to notify the relevant enforcing authority of the reportable incident by the quickest practicable means without delay. The written report follows separately under paragraph 1(1)(b), so notification comes first.
5. You are an employee and have been injured in a work-related accident. What does HSE say you should do about reporting it?
Answer: Inform your employer, because the legal duty to report sits with them
- A) Tell nobody unless you will need time off work to recover from the injury
- B) Inform your employer, because the legal duty to report sits with them (correct answer)
- C) Fill in the RIDDOR online form yourself as the person who was injured
- D) Phone the HSE Incident Contact Centre yourself before the end of the day
Why: HSE says an employee who suffers a work-related injury should inform their employer. Injured people who are not self-employed should not use the RIDDOR reporting system themselves.
6. A self-employed decorator working alone in a householder's home suffers a specified injury. Who must report it under RIDDOR?
Answer: The decorator himself, as it happened while working in domestic premises
- A) The local council, which handles accidents that happen in private homes
- B) The decorator himself, as it happened while working in domestic premises (correct answer)
- C) The householder, as the person in control of the home where it happened
- D) Nobody, because injuries to self-employed people are outside RIDDOR rules
Why: HSE says a self-employed person must report a reportable accident that happens while they are working on their own premises or in domestic premises.
7. A doctor confirms that a worker has a small chip off a bone in his forearm after an accident on site. Does that count as a fracture under RIDDOR?
Answer: Yes. Breaks, cracks and chips all count as fractures for RIDDOR
- A) Yes. Breaks, cracks and chips all count as fractures for RIDDOR (correct answer)
- B) No. Only a complete break right through the bone is ever counted
- C) No. Chipped bones only count when they are in the leg or the spine
- D) Only if the worker then needs an operation to repair the damage
Why: HSE says bone fractures include a break, crack or chip, and are reportable when diagnosed or confirmed by a doctor. A forearm is not a finger, thumb or toe.
8. A shopper slips near a site hoarding, says she is unhurt, then sees her GP the next day and is referred to hospital. Is it reportable?
Answer: No. She was not taken from the scene to hospital, and a GP is not one
- A) Yes. A later hospital referral is treated like treatment at the scene
- B) Yes, as long as the GP's letter mentions the accident at the site
- C) Yes, if she was off work for more than seven days afterwards
- D) No. She was not taken from the scene to hospital, and a GP is not one (correct answer)
Why: HSE says the injured person must be taken from where the accident happened to a hospital for treatment. A GP practice or drop-in clinic is not a hospital.
9. A mobile crane overturns while being used to help demolish a structure, not for lifting. Is it still a reportable dangerous occurrence?
Answer: Yes. Crane incidents must be reported whatever work is being done
- A) No. Only collapses during lifting and lowering are reportable
- B) No. Demolition incidents are reported by the demolition engineer
- C) Only if part of the crane's jib landed on an occupied building
- D) Yes. Crane incidents must be reported whatever work is being done (correct answer)
Why: HSE says incidents involving cranes must be reported whatever work is being done, and gives a collapse or overturning during demolition as an example.
10. How does HSE's RIDDOR leaflet describe a dangerous occurrence?
Answer: A specified near-miss event that had the potential to cause harm
- A) Any hazard written into the site's risk assessment as high
- B) A breach of the law found during an inspector's site visit
- C) A specified near-miss event that had the potential to cause harm (correct answer)
- D) Any accident in which a worker needs first aid on the site
Why: INDG453 describes dangerous occurrences as certain specified near-miss events, incidents with the potential to cause harm. Not all such events need reporting.
What this topic covers in the CSCS test
RIDDOR (the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013) makes employers and others in charge of work premises report serious work-related incidents to the enforcing authority. The test checks that you know the split between the accident book, which records everything, and RIDDOR, which catches the serious cases. It also checks the human part: you tell your supervisor, and the investigation looks for the cause, not for someone to blame.
- What RIDDOR is and who the 'responsible person' is
- Reportable injuries: deaths, specified injuries, over-seven-day incapacitation, non-workers taken to hospital
- Reporting timescales: without delay, the 10 day limit and the 15 day limit
- The accident book, the over-three-day recording rule and the 10 employee threshold
- Reportable occupational diseases and dangerous occurrences
- First-aid arrangements: needs assessment, first-aiders, appointed persons, restocking the kit
- Why near misses are recorded and why accidents are investigated
Key facts worth memorising
- Over seven days is reported
- Report where a worker is off work or unable to do normal duties for more than 7 consecutive days, counting weekends and rest days but not the day of the accident, and do it within 15 days.
- Over three days is only recorded
- More than 3 consecutive days off normal duties goes in the accident book under social security law, but does not need reporting to HSE.
- Serious incidents go without delay
- Deaths, specified injuries to workers, non-workers taken directly to hospital for treatment and dangerous occurrences must be notified without delay, with the report received within 10 days.
- What counts as a specified injury
- All fractures except fingers, thumbs and toes, amputations, likely permanent loss of sight, crush injuries to head or torso, burns over 10% of the body or damaging eyes, respiratory system or vital organs, scalping needing hospital treatment, loss of consciousness from head injury or asphyxia, and any injury from working in an enclosed space that causes hypothermia or heat-induced illness, or needs resuscitation or more than 24 hours in hospital.
- Only the responsible person reports
- Reports come from the employer, some self-employed people or the person in control of the premises, not from the injured worker or a member of the public.
- The accident book threshold
- An employer who normally employs 10 or more people at the same time on or about the same premises, or who owns or occupies a mine, quarry or factory, must keep an accident book, and keep the records for at least 3 years. HSE's guidance says more than 10, but the regulation itself says 10 or more, so an employer with exactly 10 is caught.
What people get wrong
Every accident on site has to be reported to HSE.
RIDDOR bites only when an accident is work related and results in a reportable injury, disease or dangerous occurrence. Everything else is recorded instead, and that record still matters.
I should report my own injury to HSE.
Reports come from the responsible person, normally your employer. Your job is to tell your supervisor and make sure it is written down.
A cut during a lunch break has nothing to do with work, so why report it.
Report any injury on site and get treatment if you need it. Whether it meets RIDDOR is your employer's judgement, and they cannot make it if nobody tells them.
Investigations are about deciding who was at fault.
They find the cause so the same thing cannot happen again. HSE is explicit that reportability does not depend on finding blame.
Answering these questions in the test
The safe answer here is nearly always 'tell your supervisor and make sure it is recorded'. Two numbers do a lot of work: more than 3 consecutive days off normal duties is recorded, more than 7 is reported, and the over-seven-day report is due within 15 days. Asked how quickly a serious accident goes to HSE, the answer is without delay. Asked why an accident is investigated, the answer is to find the cause and prevent a repeat.
Background reading
Drilling the questions tells you what you are getting wrong. It does not always tell you why. For this topic that is covered in RIDDOR Explained. What has to be reported, what only has to be recorded, and the deadline that applies to each.
Sources
Written from the following. Where a figure could not be verified against one of these, it has been left out rather than approximated. Our sources and methodology explains how we date and re-check them. Spotted something wrong? Report an error and we will fix it.
Topics that come up alongside accident reporting (riddor) & first aid
Ready for the real thing?
When you are scoring 90% or better here, take a CSCS mock test for Operatives under exam conditions, then how to book the CSCS test. Still under 90%? Sit the CSCS practice test for free to see which topic to drill next.