The UK Government has become highly serious about health and safety at workplaces. Laws have been introduced to turn it mandatory for the employers to take precautions preventing the occurrence of work accidents. If a worker sustains an accident at work, he is legally entitled to file compensation claim against his negligent employer. However, he needs the legal support of a professional solicitor to prove that his employer has been careless enough to provide him with a safe and risk-free workplace and the accident at workmishap has occurred due to the employer’s failure to assess the risk involved in the work-site.
As per the statistics published by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the number of work place injuries and deaths has remarkably increased over the past year. In 2010-11, about 171 workers lost their lives at work while 147 suffered fatal accident at workplaces in 2009. The UK government is urging the employers to undertake required measures to pull down the work accident rates. The Chairman of Health and Safety Executive, Judith Hackitt, the marked rise in the work accidents is “disappointing” and both the employers and the employees should take initiative and be careful to forestall the accidents at work.
Risk assessment is one of the most important things that the business owners should perform to ensure the health and safety of the employees in the workplaces. The entrepreneur of a business organization need to appoint a supervisor who is specialized in assessing the risks involved in specific work processes. The risk assessment needs to be performed before an employee starts his work. The workers often need to perform jobs that involve manual handling of heavy goods and specialized machines. Numerous work accidents have been recorded by the Health and Safety Executive where the mishaps have been caused while manual handling of excessively heavy loads and risky machines.
The law referred to as the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 has been in place to emphasize the business owners’ obligations where manual handling is involved. The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 has urged the employers to avoid the manual handling work processes if possible. According to the aforementioned 1992 Regulations, the employers need to assess the risk associated with particular work processes before initiating them. The employers need to take other precautionary measures to pull down the number of work accident injuries. They should make arrangements for first-aids so that preliminary treatment can be offered to the victims if an accident occurs all of a sudden.
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Like the employers, the employees should also be careful enough to prevent the accidents at work. They should properly handle the specialized machines and remain careful while manually transportation heavy leads from one place to another within the factory premises. In case of an accident, the victim needs to inform the employer about the mishap and ensure that the accident is recorded in the accident record book of the company. In spite of all precautions and risk assessment, if an accident at work occurs, the victimized worker can file a work accident claim to recover his losses. However, in order to ensure the receipt of compensation, the victim must seek the guidance of the solicitors and prove that the accident has happened due to his employer’s negligence.
