A near miss is an unplanned event at work that did not hurt anyone but could have. HSE’s investigation guidance defines it as “an event that, while not causing harm, has the potential to cause injury or ill health.” The part most people get wrong: in Great Britain there is no general legal duty to report a near miss to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). RIDDOR 2013 only requires you to report a specified list of “dangerous occurrences”, such as the collapse of lifting equipment or a scaffold, an electrical short circuit that causes a fire, or a hazardous release. Every other near miss is an internal matter — but internal does not mean optional.
At a glance: Nexis CPD’s £9 Accident Reporting and Investigation course covers accidents, incidents, near misses and dangerous occurrences, and how to record and investigate them. It is CPD accredited and 100% online with a verifiable e-certificate, and any three courses cost £18. It is awareness training, not a regulated qualification such as NEBOSH or IOSH.
What is a near miss at work?
A near miss is an event where something went wrong and nobody was hurt — this time. The definition comes from HSE’s workbook HSG245, Investigating accidents and incidents. It calls an accident “an event that results in injury or ill health,” and groups everything else with the potential to harm as an incident. Incidents come in two kinds: the near miss, and the undesired circumstance — “a set of conditions or circumstances that have the potential to cause injury or ill health.”
The difference is useful. An undesired circumstance is a hazard waiting to happen: a fire door wedged open, a frayed cable, a missing guard. A near miss is the moment the hazard actually did something: the box that fell from racking where someone had been standing a second earlier, the reversing van that stopped a metre short of a pedestrian.
The test is not “was anyone injured?” but “could someone have been?” HSG245 says it is “often pure luck” that decides whether an undesired circumstance becomes a near miss or an accident, and that investigating a near miss is just as valuable — and much easier, because nobody is injured and witnesses are more likely to be open about what really happened.
What are examples of near misses at work?
Near misses look different in every sector, which is one reason people fail to recognise them:
- Warehouses: part of a pallet load drops into an empty aisle; a pedestrian steps out from behind a stack in front of a pallet truck that stops in time.
- Construction: a tool slips off an edge at height and lands in an area that should have been barriered off.
- Offices: a filing cabinet tips forward when two drawers are opened at once; someone stumbles over a trailing cable but does not fall.
- Kitchens: a pan of oil catches fire briefly; a chef slips on a wet floor by the pot-wash and catches the counter.
- Health and social care: a hoist sling is found to be the wrong size just before a transfer; a needle protrudes from an overfilled sharps bin.
- Manufacturing: a machine starts while someone is clearing a blockage because it had not been isolated, but their hands are clear.
Some near misses are so common that people stop noticing them. A slip that ends with a grab at a handrail is the classic example — our guide to slips, trips and falls covers the causes and controls. A near-miss system makes these moments visible before one ends in a fracture.
What is the difference between a near miss, an accident, an incident and a dangerous occurrence?
These words are used loosely, but the difference decides whether there is a legal reporting duty:
| Term | What it means | Report to HSE? |
|---|---|---|
| Accident | An event that results in injury or ill health. | Only if it meets a RIDDOR threshold, such as a specified injury or more than seven days’ incapacity. |
| Incident | The umbrella term for events that could have harmed but did not: near misses and undesired circumstances. | No, unless it is a dangerous occurrence. |
| Near miss | An event that caused no harm but had the potential to cause injury or ill health. | No general duty. Record and review it internally. |
| Dangerous occurrence | A near miss of a class listed in Schedule 2 of RIDDOR 2013. | Yes, whether or not anyone was hurt. |
Every dangerous occurrence is a near miss, but very few near misses are dangerous occurrences. The legal line is drawn by the RIDDOR list, not by how frightening the event felt.
Do you have to report a near miss to the HSE?
Usually not. The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR) work from a closed list. Regulation 2 defines a dangerous occurrence as one “of a class specified” in Schedule 2, and regulation 7 requires the responsible person to report it. If a near miss is not on that list, RIDDOR does not require a report, however close the call.
So the honest answer has two halves. To the HSE or your local authority: only if it is a dangerous occurrence. Inside your own organisation: in practice, yes, because of the duties explained further down. For what else RIDDOR covers — deaths, specified injuries, over-seven-day injuries and occupational diseases — see our guide to what RIDDOR is.
Which near misses count as RIDDOR dangerous occurrences?
HSE describes dangerous occurrences as “certain incidents with a high potential to cause death or serious injury.” Schedule 2 is long, with separate parts for offshore workplaces, mines, quarries and transport systems. The classes most likely to arise in an ordinary workplace are:
- Lifting equipment (para 1): the collapse, overturning or failure of a load-bearing part of lifting equipment — but not a lifting accessory such as a chain or sling.
- Pressure systems (para 2): failure of a closed vessel or its pipework where the failure could cause a death.
- Overhead electric lines (para 3): plant unintentionally contacting an uninsulated line above 200 volts, or coming close enough to cause a discharge.
- Electrical fire or explosion (para 4): caused by a short circuit or overload, stopping the plant for more than 24 hours or causing a significant risk of death.
- Scaffolding (para 18): collapse of a substantial part of a scaffold more than 5 metres high, or of a supporting part of a suspended scaffold so a platform falls.
- Structural collapse (paras 23–24): more than 5 tonnes of material, a floor or wall during construction work, or any falsework.
- Explosion or fire (para 25): one that stops plant or suspends normal work in the premises for more than 24 hours.
- Hazardous escapes (para 27): the unintentional release or escape of any substance which could cause personal injury.
Notice the thresholds. A small fire put out with an extinguisher is not a paragraph 25 dangerous occurrence unless work stops for more than 24 hours. A snapped sling is not caught by paragraph 1, though it is still a near miss to record and investigate. HSE’s dangerous occurrences guidance says the decision “does not require complex analysis”; it is a reasonable judgement about whether there was a real risk of harm. If unsure, read the paragraph itself rather than relying on memory.
How and when do you report a dangerous occurrence?
Under Schedule 1 of RIDDOR, for a dangerous occurrence outside mines and quarries the responsible person must notify the enforcing authority “by the quickest practicable means without delay” and send a report within 10 days of the incident (a few offshore classes have 10 working days).
In practice one online report usually does both. HSE’s page on when to report says notification is “most easily done by reporting online,” and its telephone line is only for fatal accidents and specified injuries to workers. So a dangerous occurrence where nobody was hurt is reported through HSE’s online forms on its Make a RIDDOR report page. Report first; the investigation can continue afterwards.
The responsible person is the employer where an employee is involved, and otherwise the person in control of the premises. On shared sites, agree in advance who reports what. Regulation 12 also requires a record of every reportable dangerous occurrence, kept for at least three years, showing the date and time, place, a brief description, and the date and method of reporting.
Why should you report near misses if the law doesn’t require it?
Because several legal duties are hard to meet without doing so, even though none uses the words “near miss.”
Regulation 5 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires every employer to make arrangements for “the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review” of its preventive and protective measures, and employers with five or more employees must record them. HSG245 says investigations “form an essential part of this process.” Regulation 3 of the same Regulations requires a risk assessment to be reviewed if there is reason to suspect it is no longer valid — and a near miss is often that reason. Our guide to risk assessment covers the review duty.
Employees have duties too. Regulation 14 requires them to tell their employer about any work situation they would reasonably consider “a serious and immediate danger,” and any “shortcoming in the employer’s protection arrangements.” Union safety representatives have a statutory function to investigate potential hazards and dangerous occurrences, and section 44 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 protects employees from detriment for raising genuine health and safety concerns in the circumstances it sets out.
HSG245 points to the Clapham Junction rail crash and the Herald of Free Enterprise capsize as cases where management failed to act on earlier failings, and warns that regulators “will take a firm line if you have ignored previous warnings.” A file of near misses that were never acted on is not a neutral record after a serious accident.
Does the accident triangle prove that near misses predict accidents?
No — treat it as an illustration, not evidence. The “accident triangle” or “safety pyramid” comes from H. W. Heinrich’s work in the 1930s, later developed by Frank Bird and others, and proposes fixed ratios between serious injuries, minor injuries and no-injury events. It captures a real idea: most unsafe events cause no harm, so waiting for injuries means learning slowly.
But the original data and methods have been widely criticised, published ratios vary hugely, and a common critique is that serious and fatal events often have different causes from minor ones. Fewer cut fingers does not automatically mean a lower risk of a fatal fall. That is why we quote no ratio here. The better reason to report near misses is HSG245’s: a near miss shows which control failed, and whether a worse outcome was down to luck.
How do you report a near miss at work?
A near-miss system only works if reporting is quick, easy and safe for the reporter. Your organisation’s arrangements set the exact route, but a sound process usually looks like this:
- Make it safe first. Stop the activity, barrier off the area, isolate equipment or clean up a spill — without putting yourself at risk.
- Tell your supervisor straight away, so they can decide whether anything else needs to happen now.
- Record it the same day on the form, app or log your employer provides. HSG245 notes that memory is best immediately after an event.
- Stick to facts: what happened and what could have happened, not who was at fault.
- Expect feedback on what was found and what changed.
Employers should make that path frictionless: a short paper form, a phone or online form, and a verbal report that a supervisor writes up. Anonymous reporting can help where trust is low, but it makes follow-up harder, so it works best alongside named reporting. Whoever receives a report should check immediately whether it could be a RIDDOR dangerous occurrence, because that starts the “without delay” clock.
A near miss with no injury does not normally go in the accident book, which records accidents causing injury; see our guide to accident book requirements. Keep near misses in a separate log so they can be reviewed for trends.
What should a near-miss report include?
Use this checklist when designing a near-miss form or completing one:
- Date, time and exact location — “loading bay 2, by the roller door, 07:40,” not “the warehouse, this morning.”
- What happened, as a factual sequence in plain language.
- What could have happened — the realistic worst outcome, and who could have been hurt.
- The task, equipment, substance or vehicle involved.
- Conditions at the time — lighting, floor surface, weather, staffing, time pressure.
- Immediate action taken to make it safe.
- People involved and witnesses, named only where needed for follow-up.
- Has it happened before?
- Suggested fix — the person closest to the work often knows the answer.
- Possible RIDDOR dangerous occurrence? A yes/no prompt for the reviewer.
- Reviewer, date and agreed actions, each with an owner and deadline.
- Feedback given to the reporter, with a date, so the loop is closed.
How should a near miss be investigated?
Proportionately. HSG245’s central principle is that “it is the potential consequences and the likelihood of the adverse event recurring that should determine the level of investigation, not simply the injury or ill health suffered on this occasion.” For a near miss the actual harm was nil, so potential is all you have to go on.
HSG245 offers a simple grid: what is the worst realistic consequence (minor, serious, major or fatal), and how likely is it to happen again (rare to certain)? The answer points to one of four levels:
- Minimal: the supervisor looks into it and acts on any lessons.
- Low: a short investigation by the supervisor or line manager into immediate, underlying and root causes.
- Medium: a more detailed investigation adding the health and safety adviser and employee representatives.
- High: a team-based investigation overseen by senior management or directors.
HSG245’s own example: a scaffold collapse may injure nobody, but its potential is major or fatal, so it deserves a high-level response. A cluster of similar low-level near misses can also justify a deeper look than any one of them would alone.
The method is the same as for an accident — gather information, find the immediate, underlying and root causes, choose controls, and act. Our accident book guide walks through HSG245’s four steps. One caveat: HSG245 was published in 2004, so its references to the 1995 RIDDOR regulations and its old phone number are out of date, though its investigation method remains HSE’s published guidance. Finally, close every report with named actions and a check that they worked, and review the log regularly for repeat locations, tasks or equipment.
How do you build a no-blame near-miss reporting culture?
The biggest threat to a near-miss system is fear. If reporting leads to a telling-off, people stop reporting and the hazards stay put. HSG245 says investigations “should be conducted with accident prevention in mind, not placing blame,” and that laying all the blame on individuals is “counter-productive.”
That does not mean nobody is accountable. HSG245 recommends “a fair and just system where people are held to account for their behaviour, without being unduly blamed,” and suggests discipline may be counter-productive unless there was a deliberate and malicious violation. Put that line in writing so staff know honest mistakes will be treated as learning.
- Thank reporters, publicly or privately as they prefer.
- Act visibly and share what changed at briefings and toolbox talks.
- Avoid targets to cut report numbers, which reward silence. A rising count early on often means the system is working.
- Include contractors and agency workers, who often spot hazards others have stopped seeing.
- Involve safety representatives in reviewing trends.
How long should you keep near-miss records, and what about data protection?
For dangerous occurrences, RIDDOR regulation 12 requires records to be kept for at least three years. For ordinary near misses no specific statutory period applies, so set one in your records policy and apply it consistently. Many employers keep near-miss logs as long as accident records, because a near miss can become relevant if a related accident and claim follow. Check your insurer’s expectations too.
Near-miss reports often contain personal data — names, witness accounts, comments about someone’s actions — so UK GDPR applies. Keep reports secure, limit who sees named reports, collect only what you need, and use anonymised summaries when sharing lessons. If a near miss involved someone’s health, that is special category data needing extra care. Our guide to what GDPR is covers the basics.
Which courses cover near-miss reporting and investigation?
Nexis CPD’s Accident Reporting and Investigation course covers accidents, incidents, near misses and dangerous occurrences, keeping records securely, and root-cause investigation. It pairs naturally with the RIDDOR Awareness course, which covers what must be reported, by whom and by when, and the Risk Assessment Awareness course, which shows how to turn near-miss findings into a better risk assessment. Together they suit supervisors, team leaders and anyone who receives near-miss reports.
£9 per course. CPD accredited, 100% online, verifiable e-certificate. Pay for 2, get 3 — any 3 courses for £18. These are awareness courses, not regulated qualifications, and they do not replace NEBOSH, IOSH or other formal health and safety qualifications.
Frequently asked questions
What is a near miss at work?
A near miss is an unplanned event at work that did not cause injury or ill health but had the potential to. HSE’s guidance HSG245 defines it as an event that, while not causing harm, has the potential to cause injury or ill health — for example a falling object that lands where someone had just been standing.
Is it a legal requirement to report a near miss?
There is no general legal duty to report a near miss to the HSE. RIDDOR 2013 only requires reports of near misses in a specified class of dangerous occurrence listed in Schedule 2. Internally, employers must monitor and review health and safety arrangements under regulation 5 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, and employees must report serious dangers and safety shortcomings under regulation 14, so internal near-miss reporting is the normal way to meet those duties.
What is the difference between a near miss and a dangerous occurrence?
A dangerous occurrence is a near miss of a type listed in Schedule 2 of RIDDOR 2013, such as the failure of a load-bearing part of lifting equipment, the collapse of a substantial part of a scaffold over 5 metres high, or an unintentional release of a substance that could cause injury. It must be reported even if nobody is hurt. Other near misses are recorded and investigated internally.
How quickly must a dangerous occurrence be reported?
Under Schedule 1 of RIDDOR 2013, the enforcing authority must be notified by the quickest practicable means without delay, and a report sent within 10 days. HSE says reporting online is easiest; its phone line is only for fatal accidents and specified injuries. A record must be kept for at least three years.
Should a near miss go in the accident book?
Not normally. The accident book records accidents that cause injury. A near miss with no injury is better kept in a separate near-miss log or incident system, where it can be reviewed and trends spotted. A RIDDOR dangerous occurrence must also be recorded under regulation 12.
Can an employee be disciplined for reporting a near miss?
Reporting a near miss should never in itself lead to discipline. HSG245 says investigations should focus on prevention, not blame, and recommends a fair and just system with discipline reserved for deliberate or malicious violations. Section 44 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 also protects employees from detriment for raising genuine health and safety concerns in the circumstances it sets out.
This article is general information about near misses and dangerous occurrences in Great Britain and is not legal advice. Northern Ireland has its own reporting regulations, and whether an event is a reportable dangerous occurrence depends on the exact wording of RIDDOR 2013 Schedule 2. Check the current legislation and HSE guidance and take professional advice on specific cases. Nexis CPD courses are CPD accredited awareness courses, not regulated qualifications.