Posted By Laurie One of our day release students was recently injured as a result of horseplay in a classroom during a spell of unsupervised self-study. (We're an FE College) My first reaction was that this was not reportable, since he was not our employee, and the injury was not caused by a work activity, a view which was confirmed by the RIDDOR Reportline. However, the local training board rang the HSE area office who insist that since he was “at work” i.e. he had been sent to us by his employer, the accident should be reported. If this is so, then the report should surely be made by his employer? Firstly, is my first reaction right or wrong, and secondly what do I do now, since the local HSE office says it must be reported, but the Reportline won’t accept the report? Discuss!! Laurie

Posted By Neal Robertson I`d agree with your first instinct. Reg 2.2c Guidance note 35d lists conditions under which an accident involving a student would be reportable - if due to work organisation, plant, a substance or the condition of the premises. It could be argued that the work organisation should have reduced or eliminated the risk from horseplay to students, which would place the ball back in your court !

Posted By Zoe Barnett Hello Laurie Have you considered getting the student's employers to fill out a good old fashioned paper F2508 (remember them?!) and sending it direct to the HSE local office? That should keep everyone happy.

Posted By Laurie Thanks everybody. My own thoughts have generally been echoed. It is up to the employer in this instance. I have offered to help the employer with the reporting procedure as they are unfamiliar with it, but so far without response. I don't see that we can do any more Laurie

Posted By Zoe Barnett Bryn is quite right, Education Sheet 1 gives details on the HSE's requirements for reporting school accidents. I have some copies so if anyone wants one drop me your snail mail address and I'll pass it on. Whether or not an FE College would strictly count as a "school" is another matter for debate!!

Posted By Mike Charleston Surely the key issue is that the incident is reported, not that the employer does so. The legal responsibility may lie with the employer, but where another organisation can be considered complicit in not reporting an event, they could potentially be drawn into the affair. That takes care of both the college/school scenario (of which I have no H&S experience) and the Agency/Client scenario (of which I have plenty). Many well-intentioned Employment Agencies can vouch for the fact that they recognise/accept responsibility for reporting accidents incurred by their employees, but finding out that an accident has occurred is another matter. In such cases, it is only right that the "heat" for non-reporting should be shared with a client that knew, but chose to say nothing formal to anybody. In my opinion Laurie, there's no justification for further shilly-shallying in this case - I think it was Bryn who said you should report it and obviously, name the employer when doing so. If that means using a paper form because the National Reporting Centre won't accept the scenario, so be it (but why not simply do it on-line?). Equally, you should always make sure that all "interested" parties receive a copy. In my experience, the latter distribution can become complex, such as an employment agency (the employer), a contractor (the agency's client) and a contractor's client (ultimate user of the individual's services). But what difference, as long as RIDDOR is satisfied and no matter where "you" find yourself in this complexity, nobody can point the finger and accuse you of trying to avoid reporting the event? Mike

Posted By Jack Sorry for appearing ever more pedantic on this one but I think there is a reason why it is important to get this right. That is that for day release students the reporting trigger (major injury or >3 day) is different from other students (going to hospital). Whilst the college will be aware when students go direct to hospital from the college they will probably not be aware that an employee has time off from work as a result of the accident and quite possibly won’t be aware of some major injuries. Therefore in order to help the employer (the colleges customer) to comply with his/her obligations it is best to inform him/her of all accidents which occur to the day release student so that they are in a position to report it. And now for that drink.

Posted By Allan St.John Holt I think both Jack and Ken Taylor offer lucid and correct explanations - but isn't it sad that at the last resort the best we can say is 'if in doubt, report it' on the well-known GYA principle? (Acronym to be expanded in private!) And what changes are round the corner in RIDDOR? It's a bet that this kind of question won't be resolved by them. Allan

Posted By Bryn Maidment Still trying to work out the acronyms! There are obviously many views on this situation but at the end of the day if I were in the same position and wasn't completely clear I would still err on the side of caution. I'm not one for doing things for the sake of it but it's just that on the sliding scale of risk, absolutely correct adherance to reporting under RIDDOR is too low to waste time on. 95% or more of RIDDOR incidents are very clear cut and reported. Dotting 'i's and crossing 't's for the remainder? Sorry , got to move on swiftly to saving the world and it's dog, or at least checking out the problem that caused the RIDDOR in the first place. Report and get it out of the way.

Posted By Laurie Jack This was a "three day injury" Laurie