If you had an accident at work would you claim?

[PergolaPrincess]

I recently was in an accident at work. It is 100% their fault. It is negligence on their part.

I have spoke to Occupational Health and they have suggested I put in a claim.

I have never in my working life done anything like this, and I am not comfortable with it. However, I am injured and signed off sick for a couple of weeks and I cannot do my usual routine. In fact my injury has stopped me doing any physical activity which has also affected my MH. Also, I think that someone is going to get very injured there and I don't want to just brush it under the carpet and then see someone else get hurt.

Would you claim from your employer if you were injured at work? If you have, did you feel you had to leave, or it affected your day to day there?

YABU No
YANBU Yes you would

Wow you've been unlucky..

Speaking from experience of a personal injury claim, though not at work, I'd suggest you get some professional advice. If you're in a union they may be able to help.
In my experience it isn't simple process and can be quite unpleasant.
The key thing is that you need to be able to demonstrate loss. The bulk of my payout was for lost earnings, then there was a chunk for private medical treatment, physio, counselling etc but the component for pain and suffering, even though I'm left with permanent disabilities, was a trivial amount of the claim overall. If you haven't lost earnings or incurred extra expenses as a result of an injury I wouldn't expect much in the way of compensation and you need to think about whether it's worth the potential negative impact of the claims process. That said, a small claim may be less vigorously defended - if it costs more to defend a claim than to pay it insurers will probably just pay, but they'll defend a large claim as much as possible. One thing I learned pretty quickly is that it's all about the money, nobody cares that much about what is fair or true.
Of course you also have the moral issue of raising the question of safety in your workplace. (The criminal courts dealt with the person who injured me so I didn't need to worry about that.) Your need to think about how best to tackle that, either in conjunction with your personal injury claim or as a separate thing.,again, I'd look for expert advice and your union is probably the best starting point.

Weny did occupational health say that, has there been an investigation and the incident reported,

Only if it’s a lost time ( over 7 days) incident or a specified injury. And as PP said HSE report for certain workplaces and Environmental Health for others.

I think i remember your other thread about this, has it been reported and investigated now.

I don't know.

I am off sick. There is nothing on my HR system, in my personal emails, or my work emails about any of it.

I do not know if they have made a report, or investigated it. I think I will only know this when I go back to work and ask them where it is. That is unless I email them and ask them for a copy.

Many years ago my Mum had an accident at work and claimed, she did all the admin so she actually handled the claim as well.
Her boss encouraged it and there were no hard feelings

Did you report it to the local authority. It will be difficult to claim without evidence. Did you contact acas.

This is what workplace insurance is for. If you are not to blame and are suffering health consequences then a payment to reflect those issues will be worked out for you by the insurers.
The insurers pay you, not the employer. Sure, the employer premiums may go up if they were negligent, but thats not your problem and might encourage them to sharpen up their protocops with agency workers.

I'd put together a list of what you think is a fair claim if that's what you want to do. Loss of earnings, pain and suffering, help needed from others if you can't manage tasks, any loss of benefits., has anyone admitted liability, would occupational health and the doctor who initially assessed you support a claim.,

If it was a genuine accident then I wouldn't, assuming they were paying me sick leave. If someone had done something neglectful and I had been injured as a result then yes.

Years ago I received a bad electric shock because they had carpeted over an uncovered Power socket. The carpet had worn and I was wearing spike heeled shoes. I was thrown across the room and could have been killed. I claimed, if only to ensure they took it seriously and mended the plug socket.

They didn't object.

@PergolaPrincess if you are sure that your employer was at fault - as I was - then go ahead and claim

When I rang a solicitor, it was 3 months past the accident - and accident that I thought would take me a few days to recover from, it didn't, I was off weeks and had to resign as I could no longer do the job

In all my dealings with my solicitor there was actually no talk about how much compensation I was looking for, I just wanted it to be acknowledged that I had been badly injured due to dangerous work practices

I had to write a statement of what happened, where it happened and who witnessed it. If I had had my breaks etc

And I had to draw a diagram of the work space, where I had the accident. Luckily I had photos taken over the years of colleagues working in the complete chaos to show that cramped and dangerous work space was the norm

That was it, I got asked to clarify a few things and that was it. Then I was sent for a medical and heard no more until I was asked to supply records of how much I had received in SSP and then JSA - any compensation payment is reduced by the amount of social assistance- you have to pay that back

Around 2 years after I contacted my solicitor he rang to say he had a settlement and urged me to accept. I seriously thought it was just going to be the loss of earnings and a few quid more for pain etc, maybe 5k , It was a shed load more.

I have moved on. Yes I won't ever have full use of that arm again, but I can now dress myself and drive , I just adapt with the rest - always needing a trolly in a supermarket ( cant cope with a basket ) hold the dog lead in my other hand etc. Its the daft things that still bother me, not being able to plat the granddaughters hair due to no feeling in fingers at time and pins and needles the rest, can no longer write neatly as cant hold a pen. So whilst my payout was pretty ruddy big ( well big for me ) looking at my life now to then - its deserved

As I said previously, I sued a local family owned company, and I see them around and about locally. It wasnt personal , he had insurance, but I get totally blanked. He was running a complete shit show - 3 people previous to me left after injuries whilst I was there, but they recovered I guess, I didn't .

Find a solicitor who specialises in work place injuries, I found mine on a list from the citizens advice page for my area. His fees, medicals etc were all paid by the insurance company, I had to pay less then £200 towards costs

If it costs more to defend a claim than to pay it insurers will probably just pay, but they'll defend a large claim as much as possible

You're right about the insurers' approach with larger claims, @MrsAvocet, but sometimes even more modest ones can be dragged out

My own case involved being run over by a careless driver, and what was expected to be £5 - 10,000 ended up as several times that became it got to the point where my solicitors had to start court action to force them to pay

I was told they delay like this because a significant number die after my type of injury and thus save them paying anything at all, so I guess the numbers must stack up for them in the end

A colleague of mine had a ruined shirt from a substance used at work, he had it replaced. It wasn’t more than £100 so it was just expensed. I’d imagine it’s pretty normal to claim on the liability insurance a company has for their premises?

Op other thread states the organisation were responsible

I was at work and a bit of the infrastructure collapsed and hit me on the head. I was then off with concussion.

This why being a Union member is always advisable.
i was working in a school, had an accident because of faulty maintenance, and claimed.
The union took the claim over completely and secured a payout.
The Head was very angry that I had had the nerve to claim, tough!

Definitely claim. No two ways about it. Go and see a solicitor - the NHS will not know or warn you about any (unlikely but possible) future repercussions from this injury, for example!

So like a ceiling tile falling down in and office? So an unforeseeable risk, then no I probably wouldn't.

If it was something like repairs being carried out to the ceiling and caused something to fall into you while working I probably would as that was their risk assessment that something was a foreseeable risk to prevent.

Depending what the accident was/route cause depends if they need to report to the HSE as a RIDDOr. How long have you been off?

Fuck yes