Hi all. Please help with this RIDDOR question as our 15 day deadline is looming.

A staff member whilst working slips on moss on a footpath (not on company premises) . The next day she is fine, then has a weeks annual leave. When she returns, she informs us it got worse over the weekend and visited her GP who signed her off for 2 weeks. The injury is in her knee but not a break or a fracture.

Its the 2 weeks I'm questioning. Is this a '7 day injury' therefore RIDDOR.

I'd really appreciate any advice.

Thanks.

Only assuming the slip was work-related, however.

I think you have provided sufficient detail for an informed response but I am curious to understand in what respect are you questioning the 2 weeks?

The post at #4 seems somewhat contradictory. On the one hand

“If she was off work for over 7 days, and unable to do her normal work, so there is no issues there - it needs reporting.”.

But subsequently

“if she simply slipped, especially not work property, without any accountable cause (a,b or c), then no don't report.”.

However, I do agree that you need to apply the ‘test’ of whether this is ‘work related’ or not, and overall I would suggest that it isn’t on the basis that you as the employer had no control over that cause (there are counter arguments to this approach though) and therefore not reportable.

The decision to report or not is as always is yours to take. If you chose to do so then you can always explain the circumstances in the report.

I have had a similar situation.
My decision was to report it under RIDDOR however, I ensured there was a statement within the incident details that there is a doubt over the event's leading to the alleged incident. That covered me just in case.
I then added a similar covering statement to my periodical report to Senior Management to explain why the reportable stats may appear higher than normal and that to ensure the business didn't get any grief from the powers to be, the RIDDOR was submitted with the previously mentioned statement of doubt included.

Not had to do this too often, thankfully, but it has avoided the attention of the HSE etc.

If the mossy path was public footpath (as seems to be the case form the original description) then the appeal court decision recently reported at http://www.bbc.co.uk/new...nd-glasgow-west-29279622 may be of interest.... This relates to walking on snow and ice - but the overall conclusion is likely to be similar.

And yes I know this was common law claim rather than a civil law case but the overall standard expected is likely to be at least faintly similar.

Basically - the appeal court held that an employer cannot be expected to visit, review and assess every place an employee might be expected to walk - so any slip trip or fall in such a place is unlikely to be held as the employer's fault. An adult must be expected to have some competence in deciding where to walk and what to wear when walking on the public footpath, and an employer cannot be held responsible for the condition or for any subsequent accident / injury. (In common law...)

By extension - the accident is not work related - so I think JWK may be mistaken - my interpretation on the limited evidence would be not RIDDOR....

Steve

The clue in the o.p. "not on company premises".? Mistake in my post the reported case was civil not criminal....

I work in the care industry and this injury is quite common especially during the winter months. I used to report these events under RIDDOR (over 7 days etc) but the authorities were not really interested, i.e. Never investigated.
I now do not report these incidents and take the view that if questioned I could claim/argue there was no work activity being carried out, its just a person using a footpath for public use who slipped and sustained an injury in which the employer had no control over.
Note: I am familiar with the Glasgow Cordia case, before anyone is quick to quote.

I always treat RIDDOR with the concept of the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law, hence the recent up-dates.