The combination of heavy machinery, noise, and moving vehicles such as fork lift trucks means that, unfortunately, factory accidents do happen.

Usually, factory accidents will be relatively small incidents where there is no-one to blame. However, if the accident happened as a result of an employer failing to take the correct safety precautions, or ignoring health and safety procedures, work accident claims can help cover the costs of medical treatment and compensate the injured party for lost earnings.

Factory accidents – common causes

As with other work environments, slips and trips are relatively common in the factory environment. Often slips and trips can are caused by wet floors or unexpected obstructions such as discarded packing materials. Back injuries caused by lifting heavy objects incorrectly are also relatively common in the factory environment.

A potentially more serious cause of factory accidents is inappropriate clothing or long hair getting caught in machinery. While the law states that employers have several responsibilities towards their employees, such as providing all the necessary safety equipment free of charge, employees also have certain responsibilities for ensuring their own welfare at work. These include things like making sure long hair is tucked safely out of the way, and taking care not to put colleagues at risk.

Work accident claims can be made for a wide range of factory accidents where the employee’s injuries could have been avoided by the employer failing to take the necessary steps to make the working environment as safe as possible.

Your employer’s responsibility

Employers have a duty of care towards employees which means they must take all practicable steps to prevent accidents at work and provide a safe working environment.

In a factory environment this can mean several things including carrying out frequent health and safety assessments, providing employees with the appropriate safety equipment (for example safety goggles or protective gloves), or ensuring that employees are fully trained on all the machinery they will be using.

If your employer has ignored this duty of care, and their negligence has caused injury, you may be able to make a work accident claim.

Making a work accident claim

If you’ve been injured in an accident that was not your fault, work accident claims can be a sensible way of recovering the costs of any medical treatment and compensate you for lost earnings caused by time taken off work.

Though making a compensation claim against your employer can seem daunting, it’s against the law for the employer to sack you or treat you differently after a claim. Being fired for making a claim against your employer would amount to unfair dismissal. What’s more, your claim may encourage your employer to address the cause of the accident, improving the safety of the working environment for everyone.

If you’re thinking about claiming compensation, make sure you talk to a reputable, experienced personal injury solicitor. Some claims companies will be specialists in work accident claims, and will be able to handle your claim on a no win no fee basis, meaning that if you are unsuccessful, you will not have to pay anything at all.

Author Bio: The Work Accident Helpline specialise in work accident claims. The company works in partnership with the National Accident Helpline who have been helping members of the public make successful no win no fee compensation claims for over 17 years.

Category: Legal
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