Posted By Steve Ireland OK, having read some of the other posts on RIDDOR I have a situation... An employee is injured on the wednesday at work but does not need medical treatment and declines it as such. The next day (thursday) they call into work complaining of time delayed symptons e.g. muscle stiffness. and that they wont be coming in to work. Now the employee has already arranged to have friday and the following week as holiday and wishes to keep the arrangement as such. Now I know that holidays have to be taken into account in the over 3 day rule but the decision has to be based on if the employee would have been fit for work on the fourth day. Which would be sunday. If you have no way of knowing if he would have been fit or not due to the vacation do you report or not? My opinion is that you do but I have been arguing this today with a manager who's of the opinion that as he refused treatment that we can assume he would be fit for work. To me this is nonsense but it would be reassuring to know others opinions and Im big enough to accept that I could be wrong...

Posted By Frank Cooper Steve, Presuming that you have a self certification scheme for sick absence of less than 7 days then it would be interesting to see what date the individual considers as his returning to work day! If he says that he was fit to resume work on the Friday (irrespective of him going on holiday) then I would have thought there would be no need to report it! If he uses the date that he starts back after his leave then he has not been on holiday leave he has been on sick leave and would need a doctors note! ie off for over 7 days. In that case it needs to be reported. Worth discussing with your HR people? Frank Cooper

Posted By Stephen_S_Edwards Just ring him and ask him if he is OK! If he is, problem solved, record the nature of the conversation in your diary. Let him continue with his holiday as requested.

Posted By Neil Pearson You won't have any problem waiting until you have a chance to find out from the employee. When you can, ask him, or if you don't trust him, get an occ health opinion. It's not reportable until you know it is, if you see what I mean.

Posted By Stuart Nagle Steve. Why not do what Steve Edwards states...phone him and discuss. I would say that if the guy went off the following day, then that was the start of the period of illness and if he would only work Monday to Friday then it would become reportable on Monday (3rd day) if he had not returned to work. It's complicated a bit by his holiday, which you state he is going to rake anyway, but he should let you know wether he was fit to return to work or not on that day. being of a cinical nature, let me ask you this. If holidays are booked and an employee is sick during their holidays - does their holiday get reinstated because they were off sick? I know of systems that work like this and of persons who regulary pull a sickie just before going on holiday or claim they were sick on holiday/claim the entire weeks leave as being sick (bad back is a good excuse) and get their holiday days reinstated, thereby getting an extra weeks holiday. Far beit for me to suggest that this is what's going on here, but a check with personnel might be in order to see if this system is operated. Regards... Stuart

Posted By Steve Ireland OK, a bit more info.... I called the guy (or rather I got someone else to) and he confirmed that if he wasnt on holiday, he'd be off sick. Therefore, in my mind, declaring himself unfit for work. Therefore I reported it under RIDDOR... However, it now turns out that he was actually working at a different place during his holiday period (to see if he liked it or not) and handed in his notice (which he isnt serving) upon his return. As it now transpires that he WAS fit for work all along (just didnt want to do it for us!) is there any grounds to call the reporting centre and ask for the reportable to cancelled as its obvious that was fit for work?

Posted By J Knight Hi Steve, I'd phone the reporting centre and see if they could add additional info to the reporting form; I don't think they can cancel it as such but they should be able to amend the record. However, it isn't really important from your point of view; you've discharged your duty by reporting on the information you had (which is the only commitment you ever make in RIDDOR anyway). All that this means is that if an Inspector does come to call he or she will go away again when you fill them in on the facts, and the HSE has a small statistical error in its end of year figures, John