What evidence defends a workplace injury claim in the UK and US

This page describes what those items are, what each one proves, and how long each one can be expected to last. It sets the United Kingdom and United States positions side by side, because the evidential problem is the same in both and the record keeping rules are not. It describes what the regimes require, and is not advice on any particular claim.

Why does the evidence have to exist before anyone knows there is a claim?

Almost every item on the list below is created, or not created, in the hours after an accident, long before anyone has decided to bring a claim. That is the structural problem. The evidence that decides a case years later is gathered by a supervisor with a mop and a clipboard on an ordinary Tuesday, by people who are not thinking about litigation and should not have to.

A claim is investigated backwards and the evidence is created forwards. Nothing in either regime closes that gap.

The practical consequence is that the quality of a defence is fixed at the scene and can only be degraded afterwards. Later investigation can organise and interpret what exists. It cannot create a photograph of a floor that has since been cleaned.

What does the accident record prove?

The accident record proves that the event happened, when it happened, where it happened, and what was said about it at the time. That last element is the valuable one. A contemporaneous account is difficult to displace, and a missing one leaves the only surviving account in the hands of the person bringing the claim.

In the United Kingdom, the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013, which we set out in RIDDOR explained, require the responsible person to keep a record of reportable incidents, and regulation 12 states that an entry “must be kept for at least three years from the date on which it was made” (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/1471/regulation/12/made). Reporting deadlines are tight: fatal and specified injuries must be notified without delay with a report received within 10 days, and over seven day incapacitation must be notified within 15 days (https://www.hse.gov.uk/riddor/when-do-i-report.htm). Separately, regulation 25 of the Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1979 requires employers who normally employ ten or more people at the same premises to keep an accessible means of recording accident particulars (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1979/628/regulation/25).

One point is easy to miss: the Health and Safety Executive states that it does not pass RIDDOR reports to insurers, so an employer who has reported an accident to the regulator has not thereby notified anyone on the insurance side (https://www.hse.gov.uk/riddor/what-must-i-keep.htm).

In the United States, 29 CFR Part 1904 requires covered employers to record each recordable injury on the OSHA 300 Log and the OSHA 301 Incident Report within seven calendar days of receiving information that it occurred, and to retain the 300 Log, the annual summary and the 301 forms for five years following the end of the calendar year they cover (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-XVII/part-1904/subpart-D/section-1904.33). Employers with ten or fewer employees are partially exempt from that recordkeeping (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-XVII/part-1904/subpart-B/section-1904.1), but every employer covered by the Act must report a fatality within 8 hours and an in-patient hospitalization, amputation or loss of an eye within 24 hours (https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-XVII/part-1904/subpart-E/section-1904.39). State workers’ compensation law adds its own layer. New York requires a report of injury on or before the 18th day after the accident, or within ten days of the employer learning of it, whichever is greater, and a record of injuries kept for at least eighteen years (https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/WKC/110).

What do photographs of the scene prove that nothing else can?

Photographs prove the transient facts. Where the spill was and how large it was. Whether the guard was in place. What the lighting was doing at that hour. Whether the sign was out. These are the facts that decide liability and precisely the facts that no document records, because no document was designed to record them.

Neither the UK nor the US regime requires an employer to photograph an accident scene. The most decisive evidence in a workplace injury claim is the item that no regulation compels anyone to create.

There is a second difficulty, and it follows from doing the right thing. The correct safety response to a hazard is to remove it, and removing it destroys the proof of what it looked like. The spill is mopped, the guard is refitted, and within an hour the file holds a sentence describing the scene instead of an image of it. A photograph with a reliable time and location attached turns an argument about recollection into an argument about interpretation, which is a far narrower argument.

Witness details: why the contact detail matters more than the statement

A statement can be taken later. A witness can only be found using information captured at the time.

The useful record is the full name, the role, the employing entity, a personal contact route rather than only a works number, and one line saying where the person was standing. The employing entity matters more than it looks. Agency workers, subcontractors and visiting engineers are often the people standing closest to the accident and appear nowhere in the employer’s own payroll or access systems, so what is written down at the scene is the only route to them. Where that group ends up is a question for late-reported claims.

A witness who cannot be found is not a weak witness. It is no witness at all.

How long does CCTV actually last?

For as long as the retention cycle the operator chose, and no longer, and the deletion is automatic.

No law in either country fixes the period. In the United Kingdom the Information Commissioner’s Office leaves it to the purpose of the processing rather than to a set number of days (https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/cctv-and-video-surveillance/guidance-on-video-surveillance-including-cctv/how-can-we-comply-with-the-data-protection-principles-when-using-surveillance-systems/), and in the United States it is a matter for the operator. The life of the footage covering an accident is therefore whatever the recorder on that site was configured to do.

CCTV is the only item on this list that deletes itself on a timer, without anybody deciding to delete it. Everything else is lost through inattention. Footage is lost through normal operation. What that leaves a defendant holding once the cycle has turned, in both jurisdictions, is taken up in late-reported claims.

What do inspection and maintenance records prove?

They prove the state of the equipment before the accident, which is the question a claimant’s expert will attack and which cannot be reconstructed afterwards.

In the United Kingdom, regulation 6(3) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 requires the result of an inspection to be kept only until the next inspection is recorded (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/2306/regulation/6/made). That is a rolling window rather than an archive, so the shelf life of this record is set by the inspection interval and by nothing to do with the claim. For lifting equipment, regulation 9 of the Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 sets thorough examination at least every 6 months for equipment used to lift persons and for lifting accessories, and at least every 12 months for other lifting equipment (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/2307/regulation/9/made), and regulation 11 sets how long the reports are kept, two years in the case of lifting accessories (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/2307/regulation/11/made).

In the United States there is no single consolidated equivalent. Inspection and record duties sit inside the individual OSHA standard governing the equipment concerned, so both the interval and the retention depend on which standard applies. The retention period is therefore not a matter of policy, it is a matter of which machine was involved.

Do training records have to show more than attendance?

A signature on a register proves attendance. It does not prove competence, currency or relevance to the task being performed at the moment of the accident, and those are the things a claim tends to turn on.

The United Kingdom duty sits in section 2(2)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, which requires whatever information, instruction, training and supervision is necessary to ensure employees’ health and safety at work so far as is reasonably practicable (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/37/section/2). Regulation 13 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 adds that training must be provided on recruitment and on exposure to new or increased risks, and “shall be repeated periodically where appropriate” (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/3242/regulation/13/made). Neither sets a retention period for the record.

Some United States standards are more prescriptive about the record itself. For powered industrial trucks, 29 CFR 1910.178(l) requires the employer to certify the training and evaluation, with the certification naming the operator, the dates of the training and the evaluation and the person who performed them, and requires an evaluation of each operator at least once every three years (https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1910/1910.178). A record that names the assessor and dates the assessment answers a question that a signed attendance sheet cannot.

What is a risk assessment worth as evidence?

It is worth what its date and its specificity make it worth.

Regulation 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 requires a suitable and sufficient assessment of risk, requires an employer with five or more employees to record the significant findings, and requires review where there is reason to suspect the assessment is no longer valid or there has been a significant change (https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/3242/regulation/3/made). The review trigger is the part that matters evidentially. An assessment that was not reviewed after the layout changed is evidence about the old layout.

The United States has no general risk assessment duty of that shape. It has the general duty clause plus standard specific assessments, some of which carry an express documentation requirement. The personal protective equipment standard is the clearest example: 29 CFR 1910.132(d) requires a written certification identifying the workplace evaluated, the person certifying it and the date of the hazard assessment (https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1910/1910.132).

An undated assessment proves that somebody thought about the hazard at some point, which is close to proving nothing.

Which items have a shelf life, and how long?

What that table leaves a defendant holding when a claim arrives years rather than weeks after the event is set out separately in late-reported claims.

The pattern is plain. The items with the longest guaranteed life describe the system. The items with the shortest life describe the accident. Regulation preserves the paperwork and lets the event evaporate.

What is a defendant expected to hand over?

In England and Wales, the Pre-Action Protocol for Personal Injury Claims gives the defendant a maximum of three months from acknowledgment of the Letter of Claim to investigate and give a substantive response on liability, and expects disclosure of documents material to the issues which the court would be likely to order to be disclosed (https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/protocol/prot_pic). Standard disclosure under CPR 31.6 covers not only the documents a party relies on but documents which adversely affect its own case (https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part31).

A defendant does not get to disclose the helpful half. The practical question is therefore not whether the file will be seen but whether it is complete.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013, regulation 12: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2013/1471/regulation/12/made
• HSE, When do I need to report an incident?: https://www.hse.gov.uk/riddor/when-do-i-report.htm
• HSE, What records do I need to keep?: https://www.hse.gov.uk/riddor/what-must-i-keep.htm
• Social Security (Claims and Payments) Regulations 1979, regulation 25: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1979/628/regulation/25
• Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, regulations 3 and 13: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1999/3242/regulation/3/made
• PUWER 1998, regulation 6: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/2306/regulation/6/made
• LOLER 1998, regulations 9 and 11: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1998/2307/regulation/9/made
• Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, section 2: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1974/37/section/2
• ICO, Guidance on video surveillance, data protection principles: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/cctv-and-video-surveillance/guidance-on-video-surveillance-including-cctv/how-can-we-comply-with-the-data-protection-principles-when-using-surveillance-systems/
• Pre-Action Protocol for Personal Injury Claims: https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/protocol/prot_pic
• Civil Procedure Rules, Part 31: https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/procedure-rules/civil/rules/part31
• 29 CFR 1904.33, retention and updating: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-XVII/part-1904/subpart-D/section-1904.33
• 29 CFR 1904.39, reporting fatalities and severe injuries: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-XVII/part-1904/subpart-E/section-1904.39
• 29 CFR 1904.1, partial exemption: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-XVII/part-1904/subpart-B/section-1904.1
• OSHA 29 CFR 1910.132, personal protective equipment: https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1910/1910.132
• OSHA 29 CFR 1910.178, powered industrial trucks: https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/1910/1910.178
• New York Workers’ Compensation Law, section 110: https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/WKC/110

Last reviewed: 16 September 2026

About Logincident. Logincident is a data and software company whose configurable platform captures structured evidence at source through a mobile app, forms, photographs, GPS and offline capture, and presents it in dashboards and reports. We are not a law firm or a claims handler, and nothing on this page is legal advice.