Unfortunately, it does still occur where an injured person is "rushed" back to work for a number of reasons...ACC stats, LTI's stats etc., More often than not a person that is truly injured and returned to work sooner to alleviate stats or financial burdens often ends up going off again. I even once heard of a certain company who would drive to an injured persons house pick him up and drive him back to their site to watch company videos and then drive him back to state that he was not an LTI. Those sorts of companies seemingly thriving on lagging indicators as a measure of their "success" Wow they had 50 million man hours without an LTI kinda thing...it really isn't the way to conduct their business but some peers still adore those glorious stats...if I see higher reporting across the board I tend to view this as a positive culture particularly if they are mainly hazards/risks observed and ensuing actions involving a positive engagement with the workers...my two penneth...

I have heard of situations where a person has been injured enough to go to ED but there was no LTI as the person waiting to be seen was doing their NZQA unit standards, obviously the person was well enough to read their book work. Yes unfortunately it still goes on and this was a well know, large, company.

Absolutely, ACC even facilitates the process by the provision of taxi chits two and from work and to physio and the like

Perverse goals driving perverse behaviour.
ACC and Worksafe drive these behaviours, and as noted even facilitate them.

At the recent safeguard conference workshop there was an exercise to show how pointless LTI ratios were. By moving either the definition of an LTI or the way person hours are counted you can make them say anything.

I fully support the health benefits of safe work and there are plenty of tasks that people can do that are meaningful, however I have seen some shockers in the past.

I feel the pendulum has swung much further in the other direction with Doctors signing off people for a week with a small cut or as I am currently dealing with a sneeze induced knee sprain.

This is such a balancing act.... people should not be at work if they are not fit-for-work, however I believe it's really important for people's mental health to get them back to work, even if on altered duties, to keep them busy, involved and feeling worthwhile. It also makes sense for the business to utilise the worker for whatever they might be fit to do. However, if the driver is to manipulate an LTI stat, then that's bullocks. I'd be pointing it out as frankly as that to them!

I agree with Tania, I think too often we forget about the psychological effects of an incident and how isolating recovery and rehabilitation can be. There is a great article on the Ministry of Health website that discusses it When someone you know has been through a traumatic experience

Obviously, this needs to be addressed on a case by case basis and suitably qualified professionals need to be involved (I'm definitely not a psychologist or a physiotherapist).

That said, the LTI data fascination and associated KPI's / Level of service agreement penalties drive me insane. It's third in my line of 'Why are we still doing this?" list:
1. Tender processes that drive inappropriate behaviour
2. Arbitrary Pre Qual processes
3. Contractual penalties for LTI's

If I might add a no. 4 to that list. Large organisations that supply H&S templates but no backing up or advice on how to complete them or more importantly why they are necessary. Doing 150+ contractor pre qualifications for a construction company currently .... at least 65% submitting blank forms and delightedly reporting they have a robust H&S System in place.

@Sarah Bond Add to that list - because other people do it. It's the only reason I have found when I've asked "why" to your 1, 2 and 3. Some thoughts here

@Craig Marriott your blog and David's work sum it all up perfectly!

"Arbitrary Pre-qualification processes". Yes! Indeed. Oh well! Suppose it keeps us in work but its stultifyingly tiresome.

In the past, a colleague told me of being ordered by her general manager to take work documents to an employee who was hospitalised after an incident, reasoning that if the person was actually doing work activities, they would not have to count him as an LTI....and more importantly, they would not lose their bonus for no LTIs!