Hi Safetyman - I understand how a seemingly "simple" incident can escalate into a time off etc, but my sympathies are also with your employee who has had to suffer the pain and the inability to work - as deemed by a medical professional. You write "but surely the employee could return to work to complete admin tasks like reviewing risk assessments, e-learning, advising on SOPs, etc". Now f this is part of your employees normal duties for the majority of his working time then fine - if not then it is still RIDDOR reportable even if he is at work doing this for you. More worrying to me is your statement - " our 1st RIDDOR this year". Correct me if Im wrong, but I oick up an undertone that suggests you are expecting others? Learn from the incident at hand and stop recurrence and move on. Sometimes you need to take these things on the chin. David

Hi, thanks for the reply. I think this may have come across wrongly in my posting. We have investigated the incident, we have implemented control measures and we certainly take any issue effecting employees welfare seriously. However we are in a difficult condition at site were we are trying to make numerous big steps from a poor performing site with poor risk management to proactive well performing site. Unfort i can't say hand on heart i would not expect another RIDDOR this year and that is because i know we have must more work to do to improve. We are trying to improve our performance, trying to raise awareness and there is alot of hard work involved. I cannot go into much detail about this incident but it is a dubious incident and the extent of the injury seems extreme. The OHN is paid for by us but is certainly not influenced at all. At no time did we or would we ask her to provide any false information over an employees condition to suit us. We spend alot of money every year providing health intiviates and Surveillance for our staff. Maybe you guys are lucky not to have come across employees that know the system and how to abuse it but unfort at our site & in previous employment i have had some people that will take advantage of very minor incidents to get time of work and the associated claim. I think some of the comments are quite harsh to be honest. I'm working very hard to improve performance at the site and you seem to be stating that i'm a poor safety professional because i don't beleive an accident we had should not have been a RIDDOR. Thanks for your time.

Safetyman you have my sympathies but the the doc says unfit. So the only sensible is to get on with it. Steve

As a Health & Safety Practitioner, I would be more guided by the advice from the referral to Occupational Health Service provider than a GP's note. Let us not forget that all occupational health professionals are bound by their professional body codes of practice and are supposed to provide independent impartial advice and not which side of the bread is buttered. If this lost time accident is a major issue, your HR department/ line manager of the IP should be involved. We do not know the details of the accident/injury.

I would be more worried about loss of production and the welfare of the IP than the nuisance of having to report under RIDDOR. You seem to have the investigation and controls sewn up, look at your HR policy and your 'back to work' arrangements for the rest. many organisations have appropriate sick policies that can(and do) issue sick warnings at certain trigger points.