Well we know that RIDDOR is problematic but we shouldn't believe HSE's guidance in preference to what the regulations say.
Quite ironic that HSE in a desperate attempt to reduce the burden of red tape actually introduced an extra threshold of injury in RIDDOR 2013 by removing the requirement for reporting of O3 Day injuries and replacing that with a duty to report O7 Day injuries BUT with a requirement to RECORD the O3 Day injuries.
Why? Because we have to give a report to Eurostat about O3 D injuries. Who helped define that requirement. Well, that was the UK of course. Comes from Section 80 of the Factories Act 1961 (and probably a parallel requirement in the 1937 Act). I'm old enough (and sad enough?) to remember that it was Section 80!
HSE don't actually want you to tell them about accidents are of dubious reportability as it means that our stats are likely to look worse when benchmarked with Europe.
BUT accident does NOT equal fault or breach - you cannot decide that until you have investigated. Most H&S requirements are subject to reasonable practicability.
Now to this accident, that it happened at another employer's premises and during training seems to me somewhat immaterial if we all agree that the injured person was "at work", in the course of their employment.
RIDDOR says:
“work-related accident” means an accident arising out of or in connection with work.
(2) In these Regulations, any reference to a work-related accident or dangerous occurrence includes an accident or dangerous occurrence attributable to—
(a)the manner of conducting an undertaking;
(b)the plant or substances used for the purposes of an undertaking; or
(c)the condition of the premises used for the purposes of an undertaking or any part of them.
All the stuff that Elfin quoted is in the HSE guidance NOT in the regulations.
Note that paragraph (2) says "includes", so an accident could be reportable whether or not 2(a), (b) or (c) applies.
Did this accident occur "arising out of or in connection with work"?
Somebody, somewhere, will do their back in lifting a single 1 kg bag of sugar in the course of their employment. Almost certainly no breach of law, but it's still an accident at work.
Can't see how injuring your wrist while doing CPR is not work-related. Assuming that we cannot prove there was no causal connection. Very, very unlikely to be a breach, just as it's unlikely that there's a breach when someone doing CPR breaks the patient's ribs (assuming that they do the CPR roughly in line with their training).
So, it's reportable in my book if it meets the threshold for notification, or recordable if it meets the other threshold.
Like most other accidents that land on the Principal Inspector's desk it will not be marked INV as an instruction to an Inspector to go out and ask QQ.
If this doesn't suit the regulator, HSE could always rewrite RIDDOR which they might well do post Brexit (e.g. to remove the requirement to record O3D injuries - which is probably even more ignored than the reporting requirements of RIDDOR - in practice we can get much more information from the Labour Force Survey)
Edited by user 08 February 2020 20:54:29(UTC)
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