Accidents at Work

Once upon a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and before I decided to change careers and work for myself (about ten years ago), I worked in the health and social care sector. I had an incredibly rewarding role, working with some wonderful staff and service users and was fortunate that the place I worked was tip top when it came to health and safety.

One of my responsibilities was to risk assess…. Everything. I remember updating all personal, building and staff risk assessments myself before I left for maternity leave with my eldest and have vague nightmare-ish recollections of no fewer than ELEVEN stuffed large Lever Arch folders full of paper.

As it turns out I was very fortune to work for a company who were so “on the ball” with regards to both risk and who promoted top working conditions for staff, in what could be (by the nature of the work) a very challenging environment at times. Very fortune it would seem!

Research coming from Hayward Baker suggests that unsanitary and unsafe working conditions are putting millions of UK workers in danger, sometimes serious danger. At the end of the day, no matter how much we love what we do, we work to live, we don’t live to work and when we go to work there is an expectation that as an employee our personal safety and security should and will be safeguarded. Sadly, this isn’t always the case.

Have a look at the following infographic, supplied by Hayward Baker, alongside their new and easy to use injury compensation calculator, which has been put together to help victims of an accident at work figure out what compensation they may be entitled to.

Obviously, the pro-active approach would be to tackle health and safety concerns head-on by discussing these with your managers and going up the chain or even to the HSE if you have serious concerns about health and safety which you feel are not being addressed. In the (hopefully unlikely) event that you are injured however, it’s good to know that here may be funds that will help you during your recovery.

 

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