Early years services: incident reporting

Any serious incident must be reported to Ofsted as soon as possible, but definitely within 14 days. If you do not report incidents, and it is your responsibility to do so, within 14 days you may have committed a criminal offence. You must also follow our own internal reporting process which is also explained in this guidance.

Serious incidents include:

• death of a child, in your care or as a result of something that happened while in your care
• death or serious accident or serious injury to any other person
• when a child in your care needs to go Accident and Emergency or hospital
• food poisoning affected 2 or more children
• any allegation of harm or abuse
• a child sustaining any serious injuries

Please see the full guidance document for more information.

The guidance explains:

• the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework
• what information you will need to provide to Ofsted 
• what process you should follow, including our own internal process
   

You can report any incidents by filling in Ofsted's online form:

Notification of Early Years Provision Incident online reporting form

We also have forms and templates:

Barnardo’s forms and templates

All serious incidents are dealt with by Ofsted's Compliance, Investigation and Enforcement Team. You can email them at   ciemailbox@ofsted.gov.uk