Hi all, an employee gets hurt (feels some tightness in a muscle) and feels fine to work and comes in to work for a week. He then gets signed off for two weeks by his doctor, is this a riddor? 

The HSE used to do a fact sheet on this but i cannot find it at the moment.

This is always a difficult one, but as i remeber the advice where an employee continues to work for a period of days and then goes off sick, the causation chain is broken and you cannot prove that the accident/injury at the time is responsible. One example they used to give was "bad backs" you had to be able to point to a specific incident and not just repeated lifting. Without knowing the actual incident and injury this is difficult to answer

Hope someone else can find the link for you.

Sorry you did mention the injury - Tightness of muscle - i dont think that is a clear cut RIDDOR

Edited by user 12 August 2020 08:08:52(UTC)  | Reason: correction as injury was mentioned

"Injuries themselves, eg ‘feeling a sharp twinge’, are not accidents. There must be an identifiable external event that causes the injury, eg a falling object striking someone. Cumulative exposures to hazards, which eventually cause injury (eg repetitive lifting), are not classed as ‘accidents’ under RIDDOR."

From https://www.hse.gov.uk/riddor/key-definitions.htm

So it is not a specified injury, nor is it a result of an accident that resulted in over 7 days of incapcitation, unless that "tightness in a muscle" was the direct result of "a separate, identifiable, unintended incident, which causes physical injury.".

So on the basis of your initial post I would say it wasn't RIDDOR reportable. If you clarify that the injured party got the pain in a muscle due to, say, something hit them, or them falling over, then it would be reportable.

Even if you don't report, it is always best practice to investigate.