It is the duty of employers to ensure that the workplace is in a safe and secure condition. Your employer needs to carry out regular risk tests to ensure that the workplace is safe. If any of these risk tests come back to demonstrate that there are problems with the safety of a workplace then it is important that your employer does everything that they can to resolve the problems in order to stop the accident from occurring again.
In certain environments specific accidents can be more common than others, which is why the materials and equipment that you work with must fit the type of work you are carrying out. Again it is the responsibility of your employer to ensure that you are given the correct equipment and tools to complete your work. If you are unsure as to whether you think that your employer has done enough then it is often a good idea to look at standards within the industry as you can use these as a benchmark against which to judge whether your employer has done enough to protect employees.
All employers are obliged by law to have Employer's Liability Insurance, which should cover them if an employee is injured in the workplace and action can be taken against employers who discriminate against employees simply because they are pursuing a legitimate compensation claim for accident injuries against the firm.
As a business you should ask yourself if there was a serious accident involving one of your key workers, would you be able to cope business wise? The smaller your business the bigger the impact will be. A serious incident could put you out of business as if you are a smaller business you won’t be able to cope with the amount of money that you will lose.
As you are probably aware of if someone, for example dies or has a serious injury in the workplace it must be reported to the health and safety executive, the same idea and principal can be applied to if a dangerous occurrence takes place. So what exactly is classed as a dangerous occurrence? If an incident happens but fails to cause injury but could clearly have done so then it is classed as a dangerous occurrence, which must be reported immediately. These dangerous occurrences include the following:
• Collapse, overturning or failure of load-bearing parts of lifts and lifting equipment
• Explosion, collapse or bursting of any closed vessel or associated pipe-work
• Plant or equipment coming into contact with overhead power lines
• Electrical short circuit or overload causing fire or explosion
Some of the most common workplace accidents include things such as dangerous machinery, falls from heights, construction accidents, dangerous practises and procedures, manual handling and slips, trips and falls. When it comes to compensation claims surrounding workplace accidents these are the ones that happen then most often.
If you would like more information about making a compensation claim after an accident at work that wasn’t your fault then get in touch with a lawyer who will be able to help you with all of your workplace accidents.
Helen is the web master of Accident Consult, specialists in all aspects of Workplace Accidents.