Accident At Work - How To Claim Compensation For Personal Injury

For employees, there are protections in place and obligations on the part of the employer to ensure that everything that can be done within reason to provide as safe a working environment as possible is done. If your employer didn’t meet these obligations, and this contributed to you suffering an accident at work and injury, you could have grounds to claim compensation.

A guide on what to do after an accident at work and how to claim

If you are considering pursuing a claim, or for a chance to discuss your situation at length, you can contact one of our advisers for a free initial consultation. Doing so offers you a chance to get a better insight into what would constitute grounds for a claim. You could also get an idea of what compensation you could claim.

Select a Section

What Is An Accident At Work And How To Claim?
Scenarios For Workplace Accidents
How Can I Prove An Employer’s Negligence?
Compensation Payouts For An Accident At Work
How Could A No Win No Fee Lawyer Help Me?
Learn More About Causes Of An Accident At Work And How To Claim

What Is An Accident At Work And How To Claim?

An accident at work is an incident in the workplace that results in injury or ill health.

It’s understood that accidents happen and your employer might not be liable. In those cases, you wouldn’t be able to claim.

What dictates the viability of a personal injury claim is the circumstances surrounding the accident and whether or not the accident or incident that led to the injury should have been prevented by your employer.

Duty Of Care

Essentially, to make a valid claim, you’ll need to show that:

Your employer owed you a duty of care
They breached this duty, causing a workplace accident or incident
You suffered an injury as a consequence

The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 places a duty of care on an employer in regards to employees’ safety & well-being. They’re responsible for implementing measures as best they can to protect their employees’ welfare and are held by legislation to take certain actions to guarantee the relative safety of a workplace.

These can include:

The conducting of risk assessments, and informing employees of any risks found to the environment or work they’ll be undertaking.
Minimising risks wherever possible. For example, if an activity involves a heavy load and could be more safely carried out by two people, then two people should be assigned to it.
Proper training for any activity that could risk an employee’s health – including using equipment, or manual handling.
Implementation of safety systems for any activities that could risk an employee’s health. This could include ensuring walkways aren’t obstructed or there are one-way systems for driving activities.
Provision of safe equipment and machinery – and regular inspections and maintenance.

A failure to carry out any of these duties where needed could lead to an accident. If you’re injured in that accident, you could claim.

After an accident at work, our advisers could tell you how to claim and whether you might be able to. Why not get in touch?

Scenarios For Workplace Accidents

Questions of what could have been done to avoid the accident should be asked. With the example in mind, examine what your employer could have been implemented to avoid the accident.

Your claim could be valid if you suffered an injury because:

Systems were not in place to avoid likely accidents.
It was known to a manager that your colleague had previously demonstrated carelessness, or an inability to properly operate the machine and no or insufficient actions were taken.
Inadequate health and safety training was provided.
Your employer didn’t conduct a risk assessment.

Legislation calls for a reasonable duty of care. Any reasonable actions that could have been taken should have been taken to ensure the work accident did not occur. If they were not, your employer might have acted negligently and you could claim compensation if you were injured as a consequence.

How Can I Prove An Employer’s Negligence?

Any evidence you can gather around the circumstances of the incident or accident could be used during your claim.

This can be in the form of:

Pictures of the injuries or the environment and what led to the injury;
Witness statements;
Any correspondence relating to the hazard or proof of commonplace knowledge of a recurring incident;
Any evidence of you or someone alerting your manager or employer of a hazard/problem – or evidence proving your manager or employer was aware of the problem and had not properly dealt with it in a reasonable timeframe.

You can contact one of our advisers to discuss evidence in work accident claims, and what evidence you should collect that could help your claim.

Actions After An Accident

If you need medical attention, seek it out immediately. You can use any evidence of treatment as evidence later. You can also gather further evidence after the fact.

This can be in the form of

CCTV, photographs or footage of the incident or injuries.
Witness contact details for statements.
The entry in the work accident report book.

After an accident at work, a step you can also take is finding out how to claim by contacting us.

Compensation Payouts For An Accident At Work

When assessing potential awards for compensation, judges and solicitors typically refer to the Judicial College Guidelines. The Judicial College, the body charged with the training of judges, sets out potential awards for injuries based on previous court rulings.

We’ve created the compensation table below and used figures from these guidelines.

Type of injury	Notes	Award
Leg Injury: Less Serious (i)	A reasonable recovery was made, but left a permanent impairment - e.g. a limp	£16,860 to £26,050
Leg Injury: Less Serious (iii)	Simple fractures to tibia or fibula or soft tissue injuries	Up to £11,110
Knee Injury: Moderate (i)	Involving dislocation and leading to a mild disability	£13,920 to £24,580
Chest Injuries: (g)	Fracturing of ribs with the pain lasting weeks	Up to £3,710
Hernia: (a)	Cases where pain persists even after repair	£13,970 to £22,680
Hand Injury: Less Serious Hand Injury	Severe crushing injuries that lead to impairment	£13,570 to £27,220
Hand Injury: Moderate Hand Injury	Crushing injuries or penetrating wounds, for example.	£5,260 to £12,460
Back Injury: Moderate (ii)	Where ligament damage leads to residual backaches.	£11,730 to £26,050
Fractures of Jaws: (iii)	Simple fracture and a complete recovery.	£6,060 to £8,200
Elbow Injury: Moderate Or Minor	Simple fractures or lacerations, for example.	Up to £11,820

The Judicial College Guidelines covers general damages: awards made to compensate you for the injury you’ve suffered.

Compensation, however, does not stop at addressing the injury. Any financial losses you’ve suffered stemming from the injury would be part of what is assessed when calculating a compensation amount.

These could include:

Medical expenses such as prescriptions
Travel expenses, such as the extra cost of taking a taxi to work because you’re unable to drive due to the injury
Loss of financial opportunities – such as potential future opportunities or time you’ve taken or will take off work
Accommodations you’ve made to cope with the injury – any changes to your home or any care you now have to receive

They would be covered under special damages and could factor into the final compensation amount requested.

How Could A No Win No Fee Lawyer Help Me?

You do not need a legal representative to make a claim. The Ministry of Justice pre-action protocols offer information on what actions you need to take if you wish to formally begin a personal injury claim yourself.

The benefit of legal representation includes aid in every part of the claims process and insight into dealing with work accident claims.

However, you may have concerns about funding the services of a personal injury solicitor. That’s why our panel offer their services on a No Win No Fee basis for all claims they accept.

Under conditional fee agreements, known colloquially as No Win No Fee agreements, if your compensation claim is unsuccessful, there would be no fee payment made to your solicitor.

There are also no initial solicitor fees and no solicitor fees levied during the claim. What’s more, the fee collected in the event of a successful claim would come as a legally capped percentage of the compensation you are awarded.

Start Your Accident At Work Claim Today

Our advisers offer free initial consultations and can provide a more in-depth and personalised assessment of your claim. You can contact them via:

Calling the number at the top of the page
Using the contact form to have someone get back in touch with you.
Using our live chat for instant answers from an adviser.

A consultation is not a solicitation of our legal services. It’s merely a chance to understand your situation, talk through your options and learn more about the claims process. However, if merit is found in your claim, they would connect you with our panel of personal injury lawyers.

An accident at work can have damaging effects. Our panel of personal injury lawyers deal with them every day, can understand the situation and would treat your claim accordingly.

Learn More About Causes Of An Accident At Work And How To Claim

For tips on how to better avoid injuries, the NHS offers step by step advice on safe lifting techniques.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) provides clear guides on what a risk assessment should entail.

The HSE also advise on what to do if you wish to report a health and safety issue.

We also have a bunch of guides on accident at work claims which you can read below:

For more information about how to claim after an accident at work, get in touch.

Find Out If You Can Claim?

Accident At Work – How To Claim Compensation For Personal Injury