Morning Lynn

These Forums have been full of RIDDOR questions since originally set up.

Yours is yet another question where the case could be made for saying "Yes" or "No".

So, then it is necessary to ask why you are particurly bothered. 

Does is make any big difference if you add one on to the top of the "over 7 day" injuries to be REPORTED and rccorded or the "Over 3 day" injuries [in each case OTHER than the day of the accident] to be RECORDED?

As has been said many times, RIDDOR is nothing to do with liability but is rather an administrative mechanism to provide some intelligence to HSE as to how many accidents of designated severities and types of immediate causation happen in GB in a typical year. HSE recognise that the numbers reported (or since 2013 recorded only) are significantly UNDERreported/recorded.

The person responsible for making submissions of reportable RIDDOR events (typically the employer) can be prosecuted for failing to do so.

In contrast they can't be prosecuted for reporting something that is proved NOT to have been reportable.

So, you take your choice.

However, to convince yourself that this particular accident was NOT reportable, you should be confident that:

(a) an accident at work did NOT happen as asserted and/or

(b) the resultant injury which has apparently resulted in more than 3 days' incapacity from the victim's normal work was not caused by the initial event - not uncommon for conditions to deteriorate after time, sometimes with an intervening event exacerbating what had already occurred

Now if you choose to decide this is not reportable or recordable, what message do you send the workforce about how much you trust and value them?

As to the difference between being recordable and reportable, you would need to start by considering at what point this employee was no longer capable of doing their normal work and it sounds as if that would have been on the Monday after the accident - may be a triggering event which exacerbated the initial injury. 

So, you could choose that day to count as the day of the accident or the earlier event, but that only changes things in terms of the first day to count. So, your clock starts either on the day after the asserted accident or the Tuesday. Either way if the employee was not capable of doing their normal work for the rest of the week you reach the "over 3 days" but "over 7 days" would be reached a few days later.

Originally Posted by: Davidfilce

Agree with what Peter said.

I had a similar incident. The person had underlying conditions but had an accident which could have caused the absence (the person worked for several days after).

You have to be pretty sure that there was a causal link between the injury and the accident.

I stated this on the RIDDOR and submitted erring on the side of caution.

Its worth considering that if the injured person makes a claim on that injury, their legal team, I would expect, would ask to see things like the RIDDOR report. It will make things tricky if its not there

Not sure about the reference to an injury claim, as most cases are settled out of court with no say so from the employer. 

Well there you go, this is just one of many reasons why automatically disciplining employees for sickness absence is counter-productive.