ok I will bite - hard hat and flack jacket on! I don't think you mean the dislocation was an existing condition - I think you mean they had an existing condition which made a dislocation more likely. I take it putting the wood into the skip is part of the work activity. You don't tell us anything about the ergonomics of the task, any twisting or stretching involved? I think the weight could be a red Herrin so at this stage I am thinking reportable. Will the HSE do anything? was there anything more you could have done? probably not - but that was never the intention of RIDDOR it was simply to collect statistics about numbers of work place injuries.

In fact, this actually kind of reminds me about something which happened to me personally and makes me wonder what would have happened if it had happened at work. When i started a new job as a trainee PM several years back i fell on my foot (at home) and, unbeknown to me at the time, fractured my metatarsal. Not wanting to take time off so early on, I walked around at work (in pain!) on it for over a week, including out on site. A week later to the day i was walking down stairs at home and it finally snapped. I was stuck in the office in an air boot for 2 months and, believe it or not, that's how i got into H&S!! Here's a thought though... What if it had finally snapped whilst i was walking round site? It was an existing injury which i hadn't reported to my employer (just like our guy's shoulder) and could easily have happened whilst i was working (As a trainee PM at the time, walking round site was a fundamental part of my job).

The injury and related absence occurred as a result of a work activity therefore RIDDOR reportable. As posted by someone else, part of RIDDOR's purpose is stats collation. So it's rough as this will end up on your own accident stats but with no element of employer fault. If you have to declare it on a PQQ then you can normally add some explanatory text, although I guess that could in itself be interpreted both ways.

Is tea taster a job? I am a known tea fanatic and could really see myself in a tea related occupation. Not preparation though. I'm notoriously bad at that.

This is the first, and probably the only, time that I have seen the words "RIDDOR" and "FUN" in a sentence.

If the intention of RIDDOR is merely to collect stats on accidents, why can you be fined for not reporting.

RIDDOR –the regulations were created by the HSE for a number of reasons: • The HSE wanted to make sure that employers were not covering up accidents which is why you can (in theory) get fined for not reporting an incident • It provides statistically evidence that government H&S policy was working-unfortunately the criteria it uses might have made sense in the 1970’s when loads of people worked in manufacturing but nowadays there are more people working in offices or on the road and there are new things to think about such as mental health which are not really covered in RIDDOR • It only looks at actual incidents/accidents not near misses- it basically favours lagging indicators over leading indicators • It in theory enables the HSE to bench mark UK Health and Safety against our (soon to be ex) European partners. It is a mess and it is trying to be too many things for too many people, which is why it a blunt instrument and very dangerous if used for internal bench marking. In most organisations a single RIDDOR report can completely distort internal Health and Safety stats and lead to organisations pursuing the wrong H&S objectives based on reducing RIDDIORS rather than actually trying to manage H&SW. Not really a fun answer bit it is Monday…