Posted By Tyler
All,

I seek your learned opinions on the following hypothetical scenario:

A person has an injury and takes time of sick and then attributes that injury (a sprained muscle in his / her back) to work activities.

The normal work activities include manual handling operations to varying degrees.

I normally report such an injury as an LTI and if appropriate report as per RIDDOR.

However, I have advice from a physiotherapist that if we ask the individual about the injury and he / she cannot pin point the exact time / task being carried out when the injury occurred (ie when their back had 'gone') then it is likley that the injury is more chronic in nature and is probably due to bad lifting technique (both at home and (possibly) at work). As such the advice is the injury cannot be attributable to work (alone) nor can it be attributable to any one task / accident. As such it is not recorded as an accident satistic nor is it reportable under RIDDOR.

Before I state my opinion on this I wonder what yours are.

Thanks in advance,

Tyler

Posted By gham
"it is likley that the injury is more chronic in nature and is probably due to bad lifting technique (both at home and (possibly) at work)."

as a side did you provide him/her with training, what has been done as a follow up to this incident, have you left it, as you feel it is not reportable and not your resposibility until they are hurt as a direct result of a work activity.

You could report it and suggest that the employee claims that is was work related.

I have had this situation also previously, we did report it noting that we where awaiting information frmo the employees GP which we got and it was noted that it was a chronic condition. We decided that lifting was not helping it and did what we could to help. If in doubt, cover your .......

Posted By Tyler
I promised my opinion so here it is. This is also my response to said physio.

I would like to thanks those who provided their opinion also.

If a person reports the injury in good faith (even if misguided) as having happened to the best of their knowledge and in their belief at work (provided they were actually in work at the alleged time), then it should be reported as a RIDDOR if time qualified.

Failure to do this could be seen by HSE as being evasive and the company wanting to 'blame' the injured party and being more worried/motivated about protecting their own stats than the safety of employees.

You loose nothing by reporting it as a LTI, it is not an admission of guilt, and indeed, it can be written on the report that this is probably a chronic condition, will be further investigated and will also be contested if it goes to civil litigation, due your professional OCC Health Advisor etc. (this generally takes the HSE visit sting out of the inspector)

The Manual Handling regs are not exempt in civil claims and this 'failure' to report could also be used against the company as persuasive evidence at litigation if the employee was claiming compensation in civil law.

The courts are notoriously fickle on manual handling claims so a claim could go either way depending on how good the expert witness is etc, But, a court could be swayed by an 'apparant' failure to report under RIDDOR. Why would the employer not have reported if they had nothing to hide/worry about !

In summary;

The 1 extra RIDDOR figure for a site is of absolutely no consequence and internal stats can be readjusted if found later to be a chronic condition.
The 'initial' acceptance of the RIDDOR with a demonstration that we have treated the employee well and with sympathy is good mitigation/damage limitation at any future civil proceeding.

If a worker/union reports the company as not reporting a RIDDOR, we could fall foul of HSE and their criminal litigation powers. It's not worth the risk to not report it!

All in all, in my opinion it should be reported in the same way as any other injury would. However, the medical advise would help with the investigation and future manual handling assessments.