| RIDDOR consultation to be launched |
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Lord Young's recommendation to increase the period before a workplace injury or incident needs to be reported from three to seven days is to be taken forward by the HSE. The HSE has announced its intention to publish a consultation document on the proposed change.
Currently, when an employee is absent from work for more than three days following an incident or injury at work, employers are required to report the incident to the relevant enforcing authority – either the HSE or the local council. The proposed amendment increases this 'over-three-day' period to over seven consecutive days (including rest days, excluding the day of the incident). This change would align the incident reporting threshold with that for obtaining a 'fit note' from a GP for sickness absence, and would ensure that someone who has suffered a reportable injury has had a professional medical assessment. The duty to record all incidents and accidents internally will remain unchanged. At a recent meeting, the HSE Board concluded that "overall the proposed amendment will not weaken enforcing authorities' abilities to investigate and enforce in response to serious individual incidents and promote occupational health and safety". Announcing the consultation, which will be launched on 17 January with a deadline for responses of 11 April, HSE chair Judith Hackitt said: "While there will be some obvious advantages in reducing the reporting requirement on business, there will be other factors which need to be taken into account. We hope that interested parties will use the consultation exercise to provide the range of perspectives we need to consider in order for us to advise the Government appropriately."
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