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The Health and Safety Executive has completed its 3 month long consultation into proposed changes to the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR). A number of changes are thought to have been lobbied for by the Government to help cut red tape for business including extending the period an employee has to be off work with a workplace injury before the employer has to report the incident to the HSE. However there have been other interested parties who have been lobbying for changes to tighten up the RIDDOR regulations. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has been calling for road crashes involving people working to be included in the new regulations. Road accidents involving drivers in work are currently specifically excluded from the RIDDOR regulations but the RoSPA are looking for this to be changed. They released a statement explaining “Employers should be required to investigate and keep internal records of all injuries requiring A&E attendance or medical intervention, including injury from work-related road crashes.... record-keeping would need to be proportionate and not unduly burdensome but records would need to be made available to enforcing authorities if required.” However it is thought unlikely that road traffic accidents involving people working will be brought into the workplace health and safety regulations as the HSE view is that it is the police who are responsible for road traffic law and that it must be treated separately from Health and Safety in the Workplace regulation. The HSE explained: “The purpose of RIDDOR is to collect information which enables the health and safety-enforcing authorities to select incidents for investigation and possible enforcement action, and to provide statistical data for them to target and plan the application of resources.” “As road traffic legislation is enforced by the police and not health and safety-enforcing authorities, the majority of road traffic accidents are not reportable under RIDDOR. Rather they are reported to the police who, along with other emergency services, will be the first to respond.” For more information regarding Accident at Work Claims visit Paul Rooney Solicitors at http://www.paulrooney.co.uk/?l=13
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Road traffic accidents, accident at work claims,
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