Hi all - your opinions regarding this unfortunate circumstance. How do you think this would stand with the HSE. A client of a colleague has been advised in the past to ensure H&S in order and he has ignored her advice (she works in HR). He has no money and wants to simply keep his business going (obviously the wrong view). He is running a restaurant. Apparently 4 weeks ago a member of staff (cook) decided to empty boiling fat into a separate container without realising the inner part was plastic and as a result it melted and burnt his feet. He has been off work since for 4 weeks. He has already had one skin graft which was unsuccessful and another one in hand. He hasn't reported it to RIDDOR. He has been told to report it now and waste no more time. He is of course going to have problems. What do you think will be the outcome? Is he likely to e investigated? My opinion is he cannot do anything to help in this situation but only to ensure he makes sure he gets the right advice in H&S in the future and suffer the consequences of this incident. he has no risk assessments or training in place.

The employer has a legal duty to report it under RIDDOR as an over 7 day injury.

The injured person should complete an accident book entry ASAP. They should contact the employer and ask them to do it on his/her bejhalf if not able to go in and do it personally.

Has the injured person made the employer aware of the accident?
Were their witnesses etc?
He/she has been injured at work and probably also suffered a loss of earnings so should employ a solicitor to seek compensation on their behalf.

If there was no safe system of work in place for task, lack of training, supervison etc the injured party should receive full compensation for their injury. They may consider that as a cook they should have realised the potential that hot fat would melt a plastic container through basic training and common sense (however we shouldnt assume common sense in law!).

If the cook was trained, risk assessments were in place, safe system of work ignored etc the injured person may still get compensated but would lose a percentage through their own contributory negligence. If the employer is not found to be at fault in any way the claimant will not get anything.

There are always two sides to every story and it sounds like the cook was not wearing the sort of footwear associated with kitchen work where the risk of spills of boiling liquids, hot fat etc are fairly common. However this is just my opinion based on your post.

The HSE may not investigate or prosecute, however this does not stop the individual taking action through a solicitor.

Just a couple of points on this
1 . Restaurant - Food Hygiene and health and safety issues are policed by the Local Authority Environmental Protection Officer, does not come under direct control of HSE
2 . small business with less than five employees - not required to write down SSOW or risk assessments

However, I would imagine a hefty compensation bill arriving on the door step.

This is a very common type of incident in this field of work and HSE have produced a specific Catering Information Sheet - http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/cais17.pdf


It is foreseable and preventable so there will be consequences.

My advice is report as soon as possible. The accident has happened and the consequences may include an investigation and prosecution but adding failure to report as a aggravating feature seems unwise. The best he can do is put systems in place to make sure this terrible incident can not happen again.

I am surprised the local EHO is not already aware but failure to report will become an issue in the inevitable Civil Claim. I have experience of a similar incident and the injuries and associated skin grafts have left the employee at risk of subsequent infection and unable to work in catering industry in the foreseeable future.

Thanks very much everyone for your advice and assistance on this one. Not looking good for the proprietor unfortunately but guess that's why we are all here - lessons to be learned in ignoring health and safety.