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The judge had been plainly right to find that a former secretary's upper limb disorder was a work-related injury, that her employer had been in breach of statutory duty under the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992, and that the injury had been caused by those breaches of statutory duty.

The appellant firm (D) appealed against the decision that it was liable for the personal injuries of the respondent employee (F) in the form of a work-related upper-limb disorder that had prevented her from working after 19 years as a secretary. F's case was that, although she had from about 1989 suffered intermittent pain in her wrists, it was from about 1998 onwards that she had slowly developed a build-up of pain in her hands, mostly in the morning, and that that caused some difficulty typing; the pain also moved up to her elbows and shoulders, and eventually to her neck; she was right-handed and the symptoms were worse on her right side. In early 1999, F's workload had increased substantially. In February 1999 F consulted her general practitioner, who referred her to a rheumatologist. He recommended physiotherapy, which F began in June 1999. That did not bring any relief, the symptoms did not resolve and F had not worked since July 1999. F relied on breaches of the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1992. D submitted that (1) F's injuries were not work-related because the deterioration in 1998 was unconnected with any increase in F's workload and it followed that the symptoms that emerged in 1999 were likewise not work-related; (2) any breach of statutory duty by D had not been causative of F's injuries.

HELD: (1) For F's injuries to be work-related, there needed to be a temporal connection between the change in F's workload in early 1999 and the severe symptoms of which she then complained. The onset and nature of F's symptoms were ultimately matters of fact, not of opinion for the doctors. On all the evidence the judge had been entitled to conclude that F's injuries were work-related. (2) D had failed to provide proper training and there had been a breach of reg.6 of the Display Screen Equipment Regulations. The judge's findings of fact also clearly established breaches of reg.2 and reg.4 of the Display Screen Equipment Regulations relating respectively to analysis of work stations and daily work routine of users. The work station risk assessment carried out by D was inadequate and had been regarded by D as an unfortunate waste of time and a box-ticking exercise. The judge had found that F's working practices would have been materially altered if she had been properly trained and if risk assessments had been performed competently and with proper frequency. Those findings were plainly open to him on the evidence and he was plainly right to find that her injuries were caused by those breaches of statutory duty. (3) What the doctor wrote down as having been told him by the patient, as opposed to the opinion that he expressed on the basis of those statements, was not at that stage evidence of the making of the statement that he recorded. Rather where, as in the instant case, the record was said to contradict the evidence as to fact given by the patient, the record was of a previous inconsistent statement allegedly made by the patient. As such the record itself was hearsay. It might however be proved as evidence that the patient did indeed speak as alleged in two ways: first, if the statement was put to the witness, she might admit to having made it; alternatively, if she did not distinctly so admit, the statement might be proved under the Criminal Procedure Act 1865 s.4; second, by the Civil Evidence Act 1995 s.6(5) those provisions did not prevent the statement being proved as hearsay evidence under s.1 of the 1995 Act. If the court concluded that such inconsistent statement had been made, that went only to the credibility of the witness; the statement itself could not be treated itself as evidence of its contents. In the instant case none of those steps was taken and the trial had proceeded on the erroneous basis that the medical records were evidence without analysis of what if anything they proved. The court set out a procedure that should be adopted to prevent that happening in future.

Appeal dismissed.

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