As a by product, HSE was no longer notified about the injuries over 3 days, the employer having to pay himself for the benefits. However, fatal and major injuries continued to be reported direct to the enforcing authorities by employers. In contrast HSE considers that it knows of all fatal injuries. This system principally produces statistics on occupational accidents from the data gathered from the compulsory reports made by the employers to the enforcing authorities. Accident data may be recorded on three different databases which have different purposes.
Data come from employers via the compulsory reports.
The authority to which the accident is reported depends on the sector the employer operates in. The HSE receives most of the reports in its local offices. Offshore employers report to the Department of Energy. Inspectors choose which accidents to investigate and so while the data is more complete it is not representative. For this reason the data is used more towards prevention by information and training than as a source for statistics.