Health and Safety at Work and the Personal Injury Compensation

With the number of fatal accidents at work expected to fall during the period 2009/2010 over the previous year's statistics, is it fair to say that the answer to the above is No? In 2008/2009 there were 131,895 accidents at work reported via RIDDOR to the HSE with 180 of them being fatalities. It is estimated that a further 114,000 or so reportable accidents simply went unreported by employers of that period according to HSE Statistics. This year's final figures provisionally show a fall to 151 fatal accidents with the majority taking place in the Construction and Services sectors.

Health and Safety at work is governed by a number of Regulations the main set of regulations being referred to as "The Six Pack" containing the following regulations:

· The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999
· Workplace (Health Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992
· Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998
· Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992
· Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992
· Display Screen Equipment Regulations 1992

These regulations have evolved from previous Acts of Parliament and EU Regulations to govern the way in which Employers take care of their employees whilst in their control at work. They govern everything from the training of new staff right through to the complexities of supplying them with equipment and how they use it.

It is often stated that Health & Safety has gone too far, it's made the simplest of tasks so complicated and difficult to undertake due to "red tape". However let's look back in time a little or indeed at developing countries to see how these regulations benefit our work forces as opposed to hinder them. The regulations are there to aid the employer, to stop the dangerous practices that in the past would have killed an employee or if lucky simply injured them.

If we cast our eyes further afield and look around the world where regulations and law does not control places of work, it is easily seen that they are simply controlled by profit of the few and not the benefit of all. The lives of the employees are impoverished and are almost slaves to the profit being made by the people employing them. Working from young ages and in environments that would be deemed unfit even in the 1950's in the UK, the profits are what rule the owners mind not the safety of their equally important employees who simply have a throw away value. This is exactly how life would still be if indeed our laws had not developed and put in place regulations to govern the way we all undertake our daily working lives. It is unfair therefore to say that we have taken it too far and given birth to a Personal Injury Compensation Culture as we are so often referred to. If the people injured before us had not made Personal Injury Claims and made the employers accountable, financially, for their negligence, and developed the laws then we would still be in an archaic system where profit rules over safety.

The first set of regulations known as "The Management Regulations" set out the requirements to ensure that staff are fully trained in the tasks that they are undertaking. That the task is fully "risk assessed" in that there are written documents detailing the risks involved in the processes required to undertake the work and the preventative actions taken to stop those risks from causing accidents. Of course it is never possible to prevent accidents all together especially those which would be totally a freak of nature. The test in law is that of reasonableness. However it is important that all easily foreseeable risks are evaluated and preventative measures put in place. Most measures simply consist of thorough training for staff. Others are far more complicated and require full and detailed method statements to fulfil the task safely and without harm.

Next we consider the "Workplace Regulations" as the title suggests these relate to the environment that the company provides the employee to work in. These regulations are far more complicated and have to be applied in many different types of premises and workplaces. They do not however cover places like construction sites or places of the like where separate regulations are in place.

Regulation 5 of these regulations is what governs the condition of the workplace, equipment and the systems of work that are employed within the same. The regulation is strict and contains the word "shall". Breach of this regulation has in common law been dealt with under strict liability which means if breached there will be no defence to any arising claim for personal injury as a result of the breach. The regulation states:

5.- 1 The workplace and the equipment, devices and systems to which this regulation applies shall be maintained (including cleaned as appropriate) in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair.

2 Where appropriate, the equipment, devices and systems to which this regulation applies shall be subject to a suitable system of maintenance.

3 The equipment, devices and systems to which this regulation applies are-

a. equipment and devices a fault in which is liable to result in a failure to comply with any of these Regulations; and

b. mechanical ventilation systems provided pursuant to regulation 6 (whether or not they include equipment or devices within sub-paragraph (a) of this paragraph).

In accordance with this regulation should any accident occur due to defective premises which ought to have reasonably been repaired, or a failing piece of work equipment which causes injury a defence is not possible as no such occurrence should take place. The main piece of common Law which governs the maintenance of equipment provided by employees is a claim by a post office worker who's defective bike caused him to fall and injure himself. The case details in brief are that the postman was riding his bike and as he went over a bump in the road the stand on the bike came down hitting the ground causing the postman to fall from his bike. The post office defended the claim in that the bike was maintained and was in fact inspected on a regular basis. Applying the regulations of the time which have evolved into the above set of regulations it was established that no matter what, if a piece of equipment becomes defective or malfunctions there is no excuse. The safety of the operative comes first. Is this a bad thing that ought to be criticised so harshly as to say it gives rise to the Personal Injury Compensation Culture and the associated "Ambulance Chasers" as Practitioners in this area of law are often referred to?

So these main regulations along with the implementation of the rest of the "Six Pack" do not give way to the harsh criticism that is placed on them, they are there solely to protect the safety of people whom on a daily basis would simply go to work and risk their lives simply to earn their own living and huge profits for their employers.

There are obviously two sides to every coin, however it would be harsh to any employer to disagree with the fact that the development of our Health and Safety policies in the UK have indeed moved both technology and safety in the workplace forward considerably.