5. Reporting of injuries and incidence
The Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR) states the need to record, accidents, incidence, injuries, occupational diseases and dangerous occurrences that occur in the workplace. It is critical these are reported so that uncontrolled hazards are identified and removed.
In simple terms a dangerous occurrence is something that another time could have caused an injury.
RIDDOR states injuries leading to a worker being absent or unable to perform their normal duties for over 3 days needs to be recorded by the employer. If a worker is absent for more than 7 days this must be reported to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
Injuries can include things such as back pain and occupational disease. This is when there has been a cumulative exposure to hazards, for example repetitive handling of a load causing low back pain.
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Transcript
Well, when I was nineteen and I was working as a student nurse. I guess to the truth of the matter is, I didn't necessarily have as much of an awareness as I should have had around manual handling procedures and the problems that could be caused. At that time we were practicing the 'Australian' lift and we were also doing one man lifts on patients as well and I remember the day that it happened, I remember the patient...I remember the person I was lifting with. I remember lifting the patient and just feeling something twinge in my back and I knew almost immediately that something had gone wrong, but it wasn't until about a fortnight later that I couldn't actually move. I was in extreme pain. I had to get the GP out. I was put on loads of pain killers and I probably had about a fortnight in total off work. Then I went back to see the physiotherapist and the next thing I knew I was back at working on trauma and orthopedic wards. I never reported the incident at the time because again I thought it was just part and package of the job. I just didn't realise that in actual fact what I had done then, sort of put me in for a life time of chronic back pain and a very very weak back prone to injury and vulnerability and it was all through one small incident at work. I think now that so much has changed anyway, that awareness is greater. We are talking over 25 years ago this actually happened to me. So I think awareness is far greater now, and I also think it’s about...Well, obviously compliance, understanding, awareness, reporting, talking about incidences. Making sure that things are logged and they are known, because I think that's the biggest effect and biggest impact it that had on me was just thinking that I would go on forever that something like that didn't matter. I didn't realise that once I had sustained an injury that actually that was it, I would live with the impact of that injury forever.