Hello, would have considered it a requirement by a new employee to disclose any industrial disease when first brought into the company. This would highlight such things as HAV's which could then be assessed by HR which in turn can specify that the operative is exposed to vibratory tools for limited use or not at all. Cannot see why it would be RIDDOR Reportable on your behalf, you've just got to manage it. And as there are symptoms already evident, the exposure would most likely be NIL!

If you as the employer are the first to have verifiable notification that the individual has HAVS I reckon you would need to report. If you don't who does? We had a similar (but given length of service - different) situation recently where an admittedly longer term employee submitted a doctors letter stating that he had HAVS. Though we knew the condition had nothing to do with his current role we reported - the subsequent visit by the HSE inspector stated that this was the correct course of action irrespective of when and who caused the condition. The fact that this had not been picked up by previous Occ Health screening was also a matter of discussion. Obviously as a fabrication company we had all relevant info re. our HAVS controls ready for the visit. To pre-empt the usual avalanche of aye it is RIDDOR, naw it's no' - I stress the above is my experience and interpretation of it - others may have a different take on it.

I rather think you do have to report it, once the severity is known. Ideally, this baseline condition would have been established by pre-employment. or at least very early on (within the first couple of weeks). As things stand, you should expect HSE to want to scrutinise your HAVS management arrangements too.

Does this mean that for every employer who brings on employees who divulge said info on HAV's but admit they have not reported it before then immediately are required to report and are subject to investigation by the HSE?!

Thanks for clearing that up.