Morning All, we have an employee who spent 74 days off work last year in one block from April to June due to Athritis which was causing severe neck and back pain. He has since returned to work and hasn't really mentioned it since. He is a manual engineer working in a metal fabrication shop, welding, grinding, assembling etc. He has been to see me recently to say that the work he is currently doing is causing a return of the issues that he had last year and that he is having to take a lot of painkillers to cope with the pain. The work he is doing at the moment is of the same type as he always does but is working on a new design of machine which we are proto typing and admittedly it is a bit more awkward to access some areas. He is under no real time constraints so can work at his pace and is not pressured to have things done to a deadline, this is the same across the whole workforce really. I have risk assessed the task and came out as low risk, but this is only my qualitative assessment and not based on anything other than my judgement - I am not an ergonomics expert. The individual has done manual handling training. My issue is, the machine is as it is and I don't think there is much we can do to make it easy to work on, hence the work at your own pace type ethos - but is this sufficient with someone who has a documented illness. Also would this technically be classed as a disability and would we therefore have to make 'reasonable adjustments', and how far would they have to go? We could move him to other work, but it really is all very similar stuff..... Any thoughts appreciated. thanks.

Did your risk assessment include the worker and his medical condition? Are you aware of any medical treatment he received while away from work for those 74 days? What is his age? My wife is 50 and recently diagnosed arthritis in her vertebrae, very very painful and it comes and goes depending on what she does?

I would err on the side of the Equality Act for this. As he has arthritis he is unlikely to get any better, only deteriorate and it would seem that this is for a duration of longer than a year so it is likely to qualify. Have you considered any methods to make the item he is working on at a better ergonomic height for him? If he is constantly bending over then this might be a contributory factor and something that could be solved with a scissor lift trolley or table (you don't say how big the item is). Certainly you need to look at reasonable adjustments taking his disability into account. Completing a risk assessment for the task without taking the competence or ability of the operator into account simply is not sufficient. Additionally, although you discount other work as being "very similar stuff", it is possible that he could work on one part of the job which is at the correct height, does not include any clever contortionism or manual handling and which he could be dedicated to. This would be a "reasonable adjustment". I think it is better to talk to the operator and see what he would suggest. It's his job and his pain and he might very well have a solution that would never even dream of in a million years. Good luck.

Hi there, thanks for the replies the risk assessment wasn't personal and I must admit didn't take account of the medical condition, although as far as I understand any work of this kind could bring the pain on, but would not actually affect the condition as such so if I were to do it again I would probably score it the same. As far as medical treatment it was tablets to control the arthritis (not sure which ones) and painkillers. He is in his 50's. We are a small company and dont have a regular occupational health service, we only do audiometry with a van that comes to site.

Hi Lilian, thanks for the comments. Most of my working experience has been with multi-nationals with HR departments, procedures etc - however I started this job just before the guy went sick and there was nothing in place, no return to work procedure, no HR department nothing. Whilst he was off, I wrote a return to work procedure and did document the absence, regular contact etc but we still dont really have the structures in place that you describe. The company is pretty ethical, and certainly would like to do the right thing, its just finding what that is - as I say all the jobs on the shop floor are pretty similar really. Steve