Hi

I would be interested in your views on whether this incident would be RIDDOR reportable:

Staff member walking from one of our buildings to another, slipped on untreated icy pathway and fell.  Continued with work for a couple of hours until level of pain was such that she called her husband to collect her and went for an emergency GP appointment.  She was subsequently off work for three weeks (the injury aggravated an existing medical condition).  The pathway between the buildings is the responsibility of the landlord, not ours, and the landlord is responsible for gritting/snow clearning etc.

Do you think this should have be RIDDOR reported as a +7day injury.  Or not RIDDOR as the accident happened in an area that was not under employer's control?

I look forward to hearing your views.

Sam

Edited by user 09 February 2017 09:26:05(UTC)  | Reason: typo

Was the IP walking between buildings for a work purpose? e.g. going to meet somebody else/collect something?

In which case then surely the person was doing something in 'connection to work' - then RIDDOR reportable.

Fair point, playing devils advocate now...

If the premises/site is not under the control of their employer then surely it would be not reportable?

Originally Posted by: johnwatt

Fair point, playing devils advocate now...

If the premises/site is not under the control of their employer then surely it would be not reportable?

If you are an employer

If you are an employer, you must report any work-related deaths, and certain work-related injuries, cases of disease, and near misses involving your employees wherever they are working.

If you are in control of premises,

If you are in control of premises, you must report any work-related deaths, certain injuries to members of the public and self-employed people on your premises, and dangerous occurrences (some near miss incidents) that occur on your premises.

I fail to see the point of #5 'Devils advocate' postings, #7 the RIDDOR 'Employers' extract by Ray is quite clear 'wherever they are working'

RIDDOR guidance is easily available to all. Who is 'in control' is a red herring.

Afraid poster #5 would not get a job in my safety team.

Or in other words, as RayRapp and IANBELL2 said....  :-)

RIDDOR

The employers responsibility is to their employees regardless of who is in control of the premises and the employee was instructed to attend another building as part of their duties. Safe access to the other building was compromised the risk of which was not adequately assessed / controlled by the employer.

Given many buinesses operate in leased/rented facilities do snow and ice control feature specifically in the agreement or is it more correctly that maintenance (which this would be) is listed as the duty of the occupier?

Unfortunately the OP does not indicate specific duty arrangements - when you get down to reading these documents it can be quite surprising what the landlord is NOT responsible for and what the occupier IS responsible for.

Just to add an addendum, what is to stop the employer putting down some rock salt even though they may not be responsible for the property maintenance, assuming the landord has no objection of course. Sometimes I feel we get bogged down with who should do what and miss the big picture.

johnwatt, for what it's worth I thought you made a valid point. Hence I checked the HSE website to confirm what I suspected - every day is a school day. I'm sure Ian did not inted to cause offence.

Originally Posted by: johnwatt

Originally Posted by: Ian Bell2

I fail to see the point of #5 'Devils advocate' postings, #7 the RIDDOR 'Employers' extract by Ray is quite clear 'wherever they are working'

RIDDOR guidance is easily available to all. Who is 'in control' is a red herring.

Afraid poster #5 would not get a job in my safety team.

Good job I wouldn't want one then isn't it  ;-) and with a petty attitude like that you most certainly wouldn't be welcome in mine. 

This is a discussion forum, getting seriously sick of people attitudes, on the verge of giving up as its really not worth it. 

Amen, the vitriol on here sometimes is utterly ridiculous, there is simply no need for it and considering some of us are Chartered members (and all of us who are members should adhere to the code of conduct) we should ceertainly consider how we are viewed by others

Originally Posted by: RayRapp

Just to add an addendum, what is to stop the employer putting down some rock salt even though they may not be responsible for the property maintenance, assuming the landord has no objection of course. Sometimes I feel we get bogged down with who should do what and miss the big picture.

johnwatt, for what it's worth I thought you made a valid point. Hence I checked the HSE website to confirm what I suspected - every day is a school day. I'm sure Ian did not inted to cause offence.

I completely see both sides of the argument. Having read your link to the the HSE page I too take the point and would report on that basis. 

That said the point I was making, is that many could see it as a grey area. Let's imagine the two buildings were on opposite sides of town. What would happen if the IP slipped on the way to the other building, say, on the way down the high street. Technically the scenario still fits but I wouldn't personally report this. Yes you could make it fit if you wanted to but I really don't believe that this is in the spirit of RIDDOR. 

I have once had this conversation with the HSE in the past after taking advice on their telephone helpline for a near identical issue. IP tripped over cracked paving stone not on employers site but landlords wider site. Advice given was not reportable. 

For some organisations there is nothing to lose by reporting. For other organisations such as contractors who may need to declare RIDDOR events in their tenders this could have a very adverse effect. It is though very important that all genuine and clear RIDDOR events are reported. At the end of the day the only person who can pass a definitive judgment is the man or woman with the curly wig if it came to that. 

Re the last point, offence intended or not, those sitting on high pedestals behind a keyboard turn what should be a friendly and useful forum full of helpful people into a hostile environment that people cannot be bothered with. The health and safety profession gets a bad enough rap as it is without people unneccesarily adding to it. Personally I feel there is no place for that.

I'm not sure i'd report it, I probably wouldn't in fact

BUT recently an employee of 'ours' twisted her ankle while stepping from a building threshold, outside of our buidling falls outside of our 'demise', she was carrying reams of inspection paperwork and the accident resulted in an LTI RIDDOR, I reported this in this instance

Originally Posted by: RayRapp

Just to add an addendum, what is to stop the employer putting down some rock salt even though they may not be responsible for the property maintenance, assuming the landord has no objection of course. Sometimes I feel we get bogged down with who should do what and miss the big picture.

johnwatt, for what it's worth I thought you made a valid point. Hence I checked the HSE website to confirm what I suspected - every day is a school day. I'm sure Ian did not inted to cause offence.

We also had to walk on a public footpath to our training building and if anyone fell we didn't report, although they were classed as in work.

Is there some sort of taboo with reporting a RIDDOR i dont know about??  Why not report it anyway, surely its then up to HSE to follow up on if they deem it neccessary?  I would report this incident if it were me.  

I think it's a case of your damned if you do and damned if you don't. I was always first in and start gritting on a large site and at 8 others would take over, we couldn't use  tractor as most of the internal was walkways so it was the old hand pushed grit machine.

Never got any thanks though.

It's also surprising how many people don't understand that under a certain temp. I think -5 grit is not effective and that includes courts.

Originally Posted by: RayRapp

Originally Posted by: Brian Campbell

Is there some sort of taboo with reporting a RIDDOR i dont know about??  Why not report it anyway, surely its then up to HSE to follow up on if they deem it neccessary?  I would report this incident if it were me.  

Brian, the problem with RIDDORs is they stand out in KPIs and other metrics. It is bad enough within your own company but with corporate clients even a whisper of a RIDDOR results in armageddon. Hence people are reluctant to report RIDDORs with various forms of machinations to disguise them. Glad I'm out of major projects - it's not a nice place to be.

Also as I'd mentioned above for those organsistion that are tendering for work they are often asked to provide the number of RIDDOR events in their tender submission. This metric is then frequently used when assessing the suitability of that organisation. Organisations with RIDDOR incidents can be deemed a liability and work will go elsewhere. 

Bear in mind all they get to see is that a RIDDOR incident has taken place, a number on a piece of paper. They don't see or care that Bob tripped over his own feet whilst texting on the phone. 

Originally Posted by: RayRapp

Indeed, I know of one major client who has removed lagging indicators like RIDDORs from their tendering process because of these problems and also RIDDORs like ENs does not in itself mean the company are not carrying out health and safety properly - in fact, there is a good argument the opposite applies. 

Perfectly valid point, I've personally had experience with this in my last organisation. 

From experience one of our staff had a serious accident travelling to work, so I contacted the RIDDOR reporting number and explained what happened and they advised me that it was not RIDDOR reportable in this instance.  So if in doubt contact RIDDOR and they are happy to advise you.  It better to be safe than sorry.

Could be. However, I suspect the poster was referring to larger companies where you would expect a mix of near misses, RIDDORs, ENs. Personally I put little value on any of these metrics as they tell next to nothing on their own and can be so easily manipulated.

Originally Posted by: Stuart Smiles

What is the fear factor of putting one in ( to cover liability fir doing so), reporting within non conformance report etc, and notifying insurers as to the Potential of a claim in the future. Do it then it's done, whilst it may not be in your view as being ideal / affects figures, at least it can be explained with an addendum to tender docs etc, and you can demonstrate somethibg has happened with the risk assessment.

There are a few comments above that detail the issues of reporting when it may not be neccesary. For some companies this can present a significant issue. 

We reported incidents of HAVS found with staff, some of whom had worked in industry for years, however because we had a system to find it, they were our RIDDORS, (and all HAVS ones are manditory investigation).

In dealing with tenders we found having ISO 18001 and the getting the SSIP add-on meant that the CHAS and tender reporting went to sending off a copy of the SSIP certificate and then the section was done. 

Yes RIDDORS affect tenders, and perception of safety of an organsation, but with some supplemental information a Resaonable person can see the differences (if they want to), and yes you can decide there wasn't an issue, however as stated the person was walking between two buildings for an interview, the blame side of things doesn't really matter (other than who pays the bill), but an issue did occur, and time was lost. 

A look at workplace transport HSG 136, and Management of Health and safety at work (L-21) suggests that movement around sites needs to be considered, and as there is no mention of roads/public footpaths in the post, the suggestion would be the site is enclosed (and so responsible), in addition to the landlord's responsibility as detailed according to lease, there was mention of getting security to do it, which seems very sensible. as such, there has been acknowledgement that action needed to be taken, and a sensible solution has been found, however the trigger for the change seems to be the event.

there was outcries years ago when people said if i half scrape the path then it's not as good as leaving alone (and abdicating responsibility), and I seem to remember statements from the hse at the time, however it seems that the person is on a walkway, and there is acceptance it is a route used for getting between buildings.

The responsibility then goes to providing a safe workplace - hse view driving as part of work (i.e. travel worthy of workplace status now), and it is a priority area for them, walking should be no different

I am aware that Transport for London talk about risk assessments for journeys between offices as part of their FORS courses, don't know your view, but whilst walking on a site a slip trip fall would be reportable. the consequences for some may be hip replacement again or similar, or broken teeth with ongoing care, however I don't see how/where the duty of care to the employee has ended.

In any case, it may well be a liability issue/discussion for insurers between the company and the landlord, but I would be inclined to suggest it would end with where the red line on the plans or fence is around the site on the site plan.

It is likely to be a claim in the future, but at least get it dealt with through the proper channels and notify insurers as soon as possible in case they try to refute the claim/liability back to the organisation for non-notification to them/following Insurers' proper procedures, could even ask broker.  

If you percieve it's going to have a costly outcome, then at least you can get your evidence together (on grounds of compiling report/investigation to see if it is or is not a riddor, and if need be you could even ask at an IOSH local event a straw poll of would others report and what are the aggrevating or mitigating factors.

If you are in the position of having a friendly face at the local HSE office, you could ask, don't think it would result in an improvement notice or letter for gritting the floor under FFI, but it would be a potential risk.   

Ask the MD as to weigh up the options either way, and then you have a decision with both options from the organisation, record what it is in a letter and then file with company secretary, at least there is an audit trail and the relevant info is all there in case anyone in the future comes knocking.

It's a suggestion, don't have to do it, but i think it is an answer to the problem whichever way your company (and you) can decide to go with.