Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')
As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.
You asked:
The of the numbers of Police Officers within your force who have experienced a lower limb injury either on or off duty over the last 3 years from 1st April 2015 to 31st March 2018.
This should be sourced from the appropriate Injury on Duty form(s) and/or return to work following sickness forms used in Force. The data required for each instance is as follows:
- Total number of officers this request relates to
- Area of lower limb affected (eg: Knee, ankle, achilles etc)
- Total number & type of incidents (eg: Assault, fall, strain, sporting activity etc)
- The length of sickness reported following the injury or medically retired
In Response:
We have now had the opportunity to fully consider your request and I provide a response for your attention.
Following receipt of your request, searches were conducted with the Human Resources Department of Northumbria Police. I can confirm that the information you have requested is held by Northumbria Police.
Please note that we are unable to provide area of limb affected or incident details for any accidents off duty as this would involve manually checking all 650 absences, further to this, we are also unable to determine any specific injury leading to medical retirements as this would also involve manually checking individual medical retirement records. These parts alone will attract a S12 cost exemption.
However, in order to provide you with some information with regards to your request, we have provided you with information which was retrieved or available before it was realised that the cost exemption would be applied. I hope you will find this useful.
With the above in mind, I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.
Total number of officers this request relates to and the area of lower limb affected.
|
Area |
HEADCOUNT |
|
Ankle |
74 |
|
Calf |
26 |
|
Foot |
26 |
|
Hip/buttock |
29 |
|
Knee |
196 |
|
Leg |
133 |
|
Toe |
4 |
Accident reported off duty (only if resulting in an absence):
|
Reason |
HEADCOUNT |
|
K5 Knee condition (inc. injury surgery or treatment) |
269 |
|
K6 Lower limb condition (inc. injury surgery or treatment foot/ankle injuries) |
381 |
Accident reported on duty broken down by type of incident leading to injury:
|
Occurrence2 |
HEADCOUNT |
|
Contact with a fixed or stationary object |
30 |
|
Contact with a moving vehicle |
6 |
|
Contact with a moving, flying or falling object |
3 |
|
Contact with an edged weapon |
2 |
|
Contact with moving/non-moving machinery |
4 |
|
Entrapment |
1 |
|
Fell from a height |
10 |
|
Injured as a result of suffering burns |
1 |
|
Injured by an animal |
14 |
|
Injured during training |
29 |
|
Injured whilst driving/riding |
11 |
|
Injured whilst forcing entry to premises |
10 |
|
Injured whilst handling, lifting or carrying (includes restraining a person) |
37 |
|
Injured whilst in foot pursuit |
72 |
|
Physically assaulted by a person |
142 |
|
Slipped, tripped or fell on same level |
116 |
The average length of sickness relating to lower limb condition = 29.6 days
