Posted By Martin Taylor Recently we have had a couple of incidents where line managers have sent casualties home when they should have been sent to hospital - one an alleged back injury and 1 an alleged shoulder injury the question has arisen as to when it may be acceptable to send a casualty home without attending for some direct medical intervention e.g. hospital, works nurse or own GP? we only have a nurse on site for 8 hours a week and work 24/7 so generally the choice is between sending casualty to hospital or to home. Any comments on policy in other areas is more than welcome thanks Martin

Posted By Martin Taylor thanks Helen for your feedback firstly to deal with one of the cases I have had recently - op claims ot have tripped over a floor mat - fallen and hurt shoulder - no witnesses. Shift manager sends him home rather than to hospital - 1 hour later same gent found in local hostelry enjoying a pint! From this case I would like to require that managers advise hospital to actively discourage such blatent cheating of the system. I would also like to require managers to advise hospital so that if there are any issues that have not been identified by the first aider that develop into more serious considerations at home we can be shown to have acted as reasonably as possible as the casualties employer. Coming back to your point on we can not force people to hospital then of course I would agree but where should we stop in our level of advice? What is considered to be reasonable actions in this respect - leave it to the casualty what they do? - suggest they go to hospital - require them to attend hospital - insist that they sign a disclaimer if they ignore our advice? Again views on others as to what is common practice would be welcome? Finally thanks for your points on consulting our occ health provider and making sure casualties are always driven to home or hospital. Any other views most welcome - thanks Martin

Posted By John Murgatroyd Diagnosis and treatment ? If he's just a first aider then he doesn't diagnose anything, and his treatment should be limited to any immediate first aid needed in the case of life threatening injury.....they ain't doctors....in my place we have two first aiders, one of who sends people to hospital and the other always says "nothing wrong, just bruising"....he's got a fractured wrist and four finger fractures wrong so far....

Posted By Stupendous Man Why is it a big deal that someone sent home from work 'sick' is later seen in the pub? If you are off work sick, then it means you are not capable of carrying out your duties effectively. The rest of your life doesn't get put on hold. This will be especially true of those workplaces that encourage people to stay off when they are feeling unwell in order to prevent the escalation of a health problem to the individual or the rest of the employees.

Posted By Barry Cooper If you only have a nurse for 8 hours, depending upon your risk assessment, I would advise having a first aider on shift during the hours the nurse is off site. In the event of an accident the first aider treats the injured person and assesses whether the person requires hospital treatment. I doubt if the injured person would refuse. If he does then this should be recorded. With regard to the guy going to the pub, if it is in working time and he is being paid to be off work "injured", I would assess what he can or cannot do, and then give him duties according to this assessment, unless of course his doctor signs him off work.

Posted By Ron Young "In our compnay we have two full first aiders, one of them has got it wrong every time" and you haven't done anything about it? Wow. I believe that the first aider should be involved in any decision about care of an injured party and if a decision is required about what to do next, it should be taken with the injured party and his/her manager as well. Nobody is suggesting that a first aider can assess whether a case should be referred to hospital on every occasion but they are able to decide that a particular case is outwith their knowledge or comfort zone. Whether an alleged "accident victim" is spotted in a pub later on that day is irrelevant to the fact, however, I would also be suspicious about the seriousness of the accident and I would be sure to conduct a thorough investigation with photographs of the accident site and any statements from people in that area to testify what the conditions were like.