You are wise to take action to manage the outcome of a traumatic incident. The impossibility of predicting just how any individual may heal or not after exposure to a trauma makes your decision a challenge. In my experiences counselling people exposed to such events, I've known some heal from enormous shocks while others feel overwhelmed with difficulties that their peers handled without comparable stress. Additional perspective to consider what the barriers to recording the incident are; and the foreseeable outcomes if the individual you talk about is unable to return consistently to previous standards of working.

Agree with above. On a slightly different slant I was musing over RIDDOR if >3days of work for 'shock' and found this http://www.hse.gov.uk/lau/lacs/88-2.htm I would report in accident and follow up as suggested.

Also I wouldn't report this in the accident book unless one of your workforce has an 'abnormal psychological reaction' otherwise you may be reporting a non-event.

On a related note, have you offered the affected employees counselling over what they saw? Your insurers may be happy to provide this service under worker rehabilitation schemes or special counselling cover that is added to a lot of policies these days, often as a freebie.

All, thanks for the comments. To confirm / clarify some matters: It's definitely RIDDOR-able for the site owner (who was also the employer of the injured party). It's definitely not RIDDOR-able for us - no injury, no lost time, no danger to our employees. I know it's been reported to the authorities - our employees were interviewed by Police same day, and were subsequently interviewed by HSE and again by the site owner's investigators (and then provided information for our records). (So actually well over three days working time each 'lost', plus our MD time, plus my time - and our people were effectively just bystanders to the incident). With respect to 'psychological harm leading to someone becoming ill' and the assertion that any harm counts, the point of the query was to ask just that - does psychological harm count when considering accident book entries? The guidance in the front of the book actually refers to "injuries" and I maintain that potential psychological harm would not normally be described as injury. Clearly it's not absolutely the case that literally any harm counts and should be recorded - you don't make accident book entries if someone says something annoying at work (eg about your taste in ties) and it spoils your mood for the rest of the day. The HSE link posted by teh_boy makes it quite clear that with respect to work-related violence that it is only actual physical injuries that are RIDDOR-able ("Only physical injuries which result from acts of non-consensual violence to workers qualify as accidents for the purposes of RIDDOR 95. Accidents to non-workers and absence from work due to causes that are not physical, eg illness resulting from verbal abuse, or psychological conditions arising from physical assault, are not reportable.") If some psychological conditions are not RIDDOR-able, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that technically they are not accident-book-able either. Notwithstanding which, as Ian.Blenkharn highlights, there is a difference between strict nit-picking of the law, and satisfying the purpose of the law. That's the reason why we have kept full records in our systems - whether or not the law requires it to be recorded, I want it recorded. With regards to counselling, the employees have been offered it and declined, both immediately post-event and some weeks later (when I said "recently" it was not actually within the last few minutes). I don't really understand the comments "you may be reporting a non-event" - it might be confusion between reporting and recording. I'm definitely not RIDDOR-ing the potential psychological harm (yet - won't be unless something unexpected develops), but that's substantially irrelevant to whether it 'should' be logged in the accident book. Our accident book is full of non-events with respect to RIDDOR requirements (paper cuts, grazed finger, someone walked into a toilet cubicle door etc.) and we record near misses also (though not near-miss paper cuts). I'm actually left with the conclusion that it's not clear-cut, I'm surprised that psychological illness due to at-work threats of violence is not RIDDOR-able, but satisfied that we've done what we need to, without being excessively paper-generating.

achrn, probably wasn't clear in my post. What I was trying to say was I don't think this is something that would go in your Accident Book. The site owner owns the incident. The fact that your people were affected by it means that you'd want to have copies of all relevant records but it's not your incident. As regards the tie business, it'll depend on what you want staff to report as incidents (the harm is an outcome of the incident, the incident's what you want reported). If the behaviour was unacceptable between staff, it might be reported as harrassment/bullying, I dunno. The fact they were simply miffed at the comment may mean it wasn't a particularly serious incident. Even if an incident featured no harm, it's still an incident.

Hi achrn, Apologies maybe I should have expanded in the reply, what I meant bu a 'non-event' is that although your employee's undoubtedly saw a very traumatic event, it doesn't necessarily ensue that they will suffer phsycological harm as a result, and why would you enter it into the accident book if they suffer no ill effects? The system we use in the event of an employee witnessing trauma follows a management route rather than H&S, with welfare and OH involvement. We also use 3rd party counsellors, who are bound by client confidentiality. For instance if we have a major incident involving multiple fatalities, the pick-up on that trauma wise is seen as a management issue. Incidentally our exposure totrauma v 'psychological harm' ratio is so extremely low as to be negligible.

I agree, I record random events on our incident report log that don't really fit. They then get reported to our board and actioned via our incident system (even if this means they just get signed off) I don't see the harm in recording in this way and then using this as a reference for any follow up action. As an example, I attended an offsite first case in work hours, recorded and logged the incident just incase, I have also recorded private medical incidents as well, if nothing else to record the first aiders involvement and actions. The trouble with these forums is I think we all answer the question as we would handle it in our day to day jobs, due to the massive range of businesses and skill sets this results in drastic differences. However it's all good learning and this thread has been intresting! P.S. I have also just realised I can't spell incident (each one was wrong on spell check :) ) time for a new career!