Posted By Martin Thorpe We have someone suffering from tendonitis, believed by the individual to be due to working with DSE. Is this reportable under RIDDOR as a 'reportable disease'?

Posted By MT Not if it's only believed by the individual concerned to be connected with DSE work. You need to have the condition confirmed by an occupational health practitioner first.

Posted By Mike Draper Item 12 of schedule 3 in RIDDOR: Disease Traumatic inflammation of the tendons of the hand or forearm or of the associated tendon sheath Related work activities Physically demanding work, frequent repeated movements, constrained postures or extremes of extension or flexion of the hand or wrist Tendonitis would fit the description of the disease so the question then is whether the work activity also matches up.

Posted By Booney Martin, according to the RIDDOR guidance, in schedule 3, part 1 of occupational diseases, it states: 'Traumatic inflammation of the tendons of the hand or forearm ...' and in the activities column: 'Physically demanding work, frequent or repeated movements...' So I would be inclined to say (IMHO) yes, it is reportable if work-related Hope this helps Regards Booney

Posted By Heather Collins If you have the doctor's diagnosis, that's step one. Step two is to be sure the problem is being caused as described in the RIDDOR Regs (as quoted above) Personally I would not "just assume and report it". I would wait until the individual comes back to work and then talk to them about what they think is causing the problem. I would also make sure they saw my company OH dept. If your investigation shows that the condition is more likely than not to correspond to the cause description given in RIDDOR (which in this case is quite broad-based) then yes go ahead and report it. HSE are not going to get excited about you waiting for a week or even two to be sure before you report. Since you have to describe what caused the problem on the 2508, it's difficult to see how you can fill one in anyway if you have not talked to the individual concerned.

Posted By J Knight And there's reasons why you don't have to establish cause and effect: First off, its very difficult; in the example above the employee's bad back may have been caused by pulling pints in a bar; equally it may have been caused by her workstation; or it could have been any combination of the two in any proportion. Secondly, cause and effect will be established one way or another in court, either civil or criminal, if the case comes to that. The doctors opinion, HSEs opinion, the employers opinion, the employees opinion and everybody else's will be weighed by a judge (or three) and justice will result. RIDDOR doesn't ask employers to be private detectives or occy health physicians, so the mere existence of two circumstances triggers a report, its not for the employer to say that one is the cause of the other, John

Posted By Mike Draper Just as an aside, reporting does not necessarily result in enforcement action. Reporting is intended as a way of providing statistical information for monitoring across industries, to determine trends and point a way forward for strategy. It is also used to identify hotspots - such as similar diseases being reported in a geographical area or in a particular industry. It would be an unusual single incident that results in enforcement action and in such circumstances it is more than likely that action would be taken irrespective of any report as the HSE/LA would be informed anyway, e.g. by the police. As someone who regularly reviews construction contractor competence and performance, the existence of a reportable injury is in itself only an indicator for me to check that the cause was identified and preventative action taken. This is in some ways better than having no reported injuries as that makes it hard to establish the culture of the contractor organisation. Do they have injuries but not report them or are they really so good that they don't have reportable injuries? I only say this as there always seems to be a reluctance on the part of people posting here to make reports under RIDDOR.

Posted By J Knight Steve, Sorry, but that's not true; its reportable if the person's work involves specified activities and if they have a specified condition. It doesn't state that the illness has to have been caused by work, unlike a reportable injury which does. The wording says 'a person at work'; this doesn't mean that they had to have been at work when the illness was caused. My posts above give some indication of why we don't have to make the link ourselves; if the illness is investigated by the enforcers it will be part of the investigation to make the link, John

Posted By Brigham Sheelagh the term RSI is used to group a set of distinctly different upper limb injuries/illnesses and is not in itself an injury/illness. You complain of hand, wrist, elbow, arm, shoulder and top of spine injuries and before you do anything else, you should get these symptoms checked by a specialist for a firm diagnosis.

Posted By Brigham Sheelagh Have you considered speaking to the Citizens advice bureau about the condition you are facing? It might be worth a chat with them

Posted By Sheelagh Thanks for advice everyone. I was advised by my doctor, physiotherapist to seek advice from Citizens Advice regarding employment issues. This being the 1st time in 35 years of work history I have felt the need to defend myself in the work place. I worked for many years in an office and whether any issues about health and safety came up the managers would action it immediately. I am always the type to sit quiet and hope no one notices me, head down and go for the figures expected and beyond. Unfortunately my being conscencious about not letting any one down has proven to be my biggest mistake. I just wished none of this happened and most of all I fear my hand useage loss, because I love to paint, cannot sew, write, or knit anymore. I am just wondering today as I type, when my boss confided in me about being sued by a former employee and I wished at the time I had become more nosey and asked why he was suing. At the time it was not important to me because this has been the last thing on my mind. I just offered sympathy and suggested he take a break. Ha! something that he disputes with me right now is a break for physio exercises or moreso his wife!!! I will try to keep you all posted on the results and any developments thats if anyone is interested...haha Thanks again.