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Posted By David Kennedy
I should be grateful if somebody could tell me whether there is a specific legal duty under existing English law placed on employers to investigate accidents that occur to staff working in the healthcare sector? And if there is such a duty, I should be grateful for a full citation of the relevant legislation or for information as to where this can be found.
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Posted By lizzie harvey
Hi David,
All employers have a legal duty to investigate an accident at work:
RIDDOR (Reporting of Injuries, Diseases & Dangerous Occurence Regs) 1995
Social Security Act 1998 (Section 29 - the claimant needs proof he had an industrial accident or benefits will be affected).
Management of Health & Safety at Work Regs 1999 (Reg 5 - accident investigation is a duty placed on the employer by the "monitoring" requirement.
Woolf Reforms - a full report and investigation must be done in the event of a future claim by the employee.
Hope this helps
Lizzie
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Posted By Andy Brazier
HSE ran a consultation in 2001 on whether to create a duty to investigate. As a result it was decided to improve guidance but not create a duty. Unless anything has changed in the last year or two I think there is a legal duty to report but not to investigate accidents.
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Posted By lizzie harvey
I stand corrected!!! :-)
(Am just a baby H&S bod lol)
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Posted By David Whaley
David,
While there is no implicit legal requirement to investigate accident, there is the implied requirement in Regulation 3 of the Management regs. To review your risk assessment when you have reason to consider they are no longer valid i.e. following an accident(the wording is from memory). How can you review the assessment if you do not know how the accident was caused? Reg 5 also requires you to review your H&S arrangements. For both of these you need to investigate accidents.
Hope this helps
David
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Posted By steve e ashton
Social Security (Claims and payments) regs - the law that makes everyone have an 'accident book' (NB NOT RIDDOR...) includes an obligation on the employer to investigate any injuries reported by the employee and to record any discrepancy noted.
Whilst the Social Security payments covered by these regs no longer exist (?) the regs themselves remain. So the BI 510 must be maintained - and that means a duty to investigate.
Steve
(Do I win the chocolate Noddy?)
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Posted By Adie
On a slight aside from the Legal Duty to investigate, who would be best placed to conduct such an investigation?
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Posted By Jay Joshi
Whilst there is no explict wording in legislation to "investigate accidents", the closest there is comes from Regulation 5 of The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 as amended.
The ACoP part that accompanies Regulation 5 under the heading Monitoring requires:-
"Adequately investigating the immediate and underlying causes of incidents and accidents to ensure that remedial action is taken, lessons are learnt and longer term objectives are introduced"
The HSC ACoP has a quasi-legal status!
On one hand, we dislike prescriptive legislation, but when we have objective legislation, despite there being HSC/E ACoP & Guidance, do not seem to accept it and only want to find a particular requirement in the text of the statutory instuments. Then it is within what constitutes "monitoring" in Regulation 5 of Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999.
Obviously, there are some others already mentioned.
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Posted By John A Wright
Adie wrote
>>On a slight aside from the Legal Duty to investigate, who would be best placed to conduct such an investigation
Adie,
At my customers I deliver training on Accident Investigation, most of their department managers are involved.
We usually decide who does the investigation depending on severity, and include at least two people.
If a building burned down I expect a director would want to be involved. If a machine has been involved in an accident then the maintenance or engineering manager would want to be involved. A minor slip/trip might only involve a dept. manager and/or supervisor. In each case the investigation would also involve the safety manager as the other member of the investigation team, and myself too (consultant)if I was available.
I always get involved in reviewing the corrective actions and whether they have been suitably implemented, and any review of risk assessments and procedures.
John W
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Posted By Alan E McKerns
Under Consultation with employees Regs (exact detail? late!)you must include them in such things as accident investigations.
I'm sure.
Would'nt like to argue not doing it to be fair. Not that i'm saying this is the case.
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