Hello all.

I wanted to gauge your feedback on your approach to minor injuries. We have a production and warehouse facility and there is lots of manual handling operations. I'm interested to know what course of action you might recommend in dealing with minor injuries i.e. small bump on the head, something knocking into somebody.

In these instances, where it is reported we fill out the accident book buand then decide if to report to RIDDOR (depending on the severity) or investigate/update RA etc.

Management are concerned with what we do when we determine that an accident such as a small bump on the head is minor, no treatment is necessary and the worker returns to work. They are specifically concerned about the worker turning round claiming problems at a later date i.e. concussion, headaches etc. Should organisations have employees sign a waiver of sorts if we recommend medical treatment but they refuse?.

Thanks in advance.

You would be wasting time and paper - you cannot ask an individual to sign away rights for injury or death.

You can make a note on the accident record that they were advised to "attend hospital, see their doctor etc." but declined at the time and that is the best you can do.

After all are you medically qualified to determine if they actually do need treatment or just trying to salve management conscience.

I'm a bit confused about what the scenario is.  First you mention medical treatment not being necessary, then a disclaimer if medical attention is advised and refused.  It can't be both at the same time - unless you would deliberately advise medical attention when none is needed!

In the insurers world where waivers were permitted bad employers would have the dying signing disclaimers to negate claims against their negligence - I smell a managment ethos not wholly originating in the UK where even a paper cut would result in the suggestion of hospital treatment "just in case"

When you say 'depending on severity' is that severity of injury or the potential severity - looking at the circumstances and whether they represent a significant risk (ie need to act) or trivial, no potential for a more serious event.

As a SP I am concerned primarily with prevention - managing future risk. I care little about claims, being something that has already happened, you can't manage safety well reacting to claims or even civil findings.

However, the severity of an injury is down to chance, and so little can be derived from thryong to monitor by injury. With your new system you could set up a risk rating for any incidents, and that way you know you are looking at the opportunity to learn and improve.

There was recently a discussion thread on rating accidents. Sorry can't make hyperlink. Search for Accident / "Incident rating or ranking system" or under Aud posts.

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So "management" have 2 options based on what you have said;

- employ a Doctor on your site to give a qualified medical opinion at that time on fitness to resume work

- or send the injured party to A&E regardless of whether they want to go or not

Neither of which is pratical, realistic, nor will it prevent any individual putting in a claim whether they have signed a disclaimer or not (worthless bits of paper). Perhaps they may be better having a solicitor on site all the time?

Your first aiders will be saying to the injured parties; "I'm calling you an ambulance", "if you have these sypmtoms then you should take yourself off to A&E", "your ok to get back to work now". If managment can't live with these situations then see above.

Safeandshiny.

Ok that's fine.

Yes there a lots of ways of trying to identify trends and clusters - site maps (location), activty, task, etc. It is good to be able to see the "bigger" picture that and individual incident in isolation may not show. I suppose the issue is getting enough data from the accident book (which will be very limited) to enable you to do this, which may mean coming up with some additional in house forms/investigations/etc.