Industrial Illness and Injuries

The place of work provides many hazards –many of them are obvious like chemicals or dangerous machinery, whilst many other hazards may be a bit less apparent-like industrial illnesses. There is a vast array of illnesses like mesothelioma, vibration white finger, asbestosis, strain injuries that are repetitive in nature, skin diseases like eczema and dermatitis, industrial deafness, tinnitus, raynaud and carpel tunnel being among the major ones.

It becomes your duty as an employer to protect your employees from hazardous situations and hazardous substances whilst they are in job so that the risk of developing any type of industrial illnesses gets minimised.  

Following are some of the valuable ways through which some of big risks can be minimised:Life is full of risks and at times one does not have an option than to face them. However it becomes the duty of the employer to ensure safe and healthy working environment for its workers. Still due to the nature of work, in certain cases it seems almost impossible to the employer to avert certain hazardous substances that are to be used in work. For such cases, it is the responsibility of the employer to provide equipments that assure a protection to employees from these hazardous substances. However, making proper use of these equipments is further the duty of the employees and not the employer.

Still in some workplaces it may be possible that employees are suffering due to the negligence of proper protective measures on the part of the employer or any other concerned person. Hence, employee whose health is suffering has all the right to claim for a compensation for any health hazard or accident that he might have undergone at the workplace because of machinery or any other thing. Industrial illness solicitor can be consulted to represent the case of the employee in the matter. Asbestos illnesses, recurring strain Injury, skin disease like eczema and dermatitis, Vibration White Finger, Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, Tinnitus or any other industrial deafness are some of the illnesses that can be compensated for. Nevertheless, one cannot claim a compensation for excess of stress at the workplace.

Industrial injuries and illnesses are caused mainly because of manual carriage of heavy materials, failure or misuse of vehicles, inadequate training to employees to ensure their safety, exposure to hazardous substances, poor ergonomics and many others. Asbestosis, air embolism, phossy jaw, silicosis, and decompression sickness are some other injuries that can be compensated for.

These industrial injuries and illnesses though cannot be expected to rule out completely, but undoubtedly their numbers can be reduced by taking proper care, providing safety training programs for employees, safety clothes, equipments and last but not least, risk assessment programs that will help to analyse the root cause of the most common kinds of accidents at the workplace and further suggest measures to elude them. So, if you are a victim in any such negligence predicament at your workplace, it is always advisable to consult an industrial illness solicitor.

1) If the working environment in which your employees have to work is extremely noisy, then, it is imperative to reduce noise to a bearable level. If this cannot be done, it is advisable to provide your employees with the ear defenders so that industrial deafness or hearing loss can be prevented in a big way.
2) If the working environment brings the employees into the contact of dangerous chemicals, you should look for ways through which dangerous chemicals can be replaced with less harmful chemicals. Also, make sure that the employees get into minimum contact with monstrous chemicals as far sa possible. If the harmful chemicals cannot be replaced, provide them protective clothing.

Industrial injury

Industrial injury can be defined as any body part damage or disease that results from official working. Generally, the organs like hands, lungs, skeleton, spine, skin and the head become the victims in the industrial injuries.

The common causes due to which industrial injuries generally occur are failure or misuse of vehicles; safety training that had been inadequate, poor ergonomics, long hair or jewellery which gets tangled in any machinery or tools and manual handling that is done to very heavy loads.

If your employees have suffered from any type of industrial illness and injury when working for your company, you are legally bound to entitle them compensation for suffering, pain and more importantly loss of wages.

It is also advisable that you insure your workers with insurance policies against industrial illnesses and injuries. If any type of mishappening takes place, claims shall be made from insurance company. This way you will be relieved from huge financial liabilities.

Obviously compensation claims can be very complicated and it would be unwise to attempt to pursue a claim without professional assistance which should be provided by a solicitor with expertise in this field. Excalibur Solicitors is a specialist personal injury practice dealing with all types of injury claims such as road accidents, accidents at work, accidents in public places, medical negligence. If you have been injured in the last three years and require advice on your potential compensation claim we can provide a free legal assessment of your case if you complete our Application Form. We operate on a "No Win No Fee" basis at no cost to you.

The information in this article is designed to provide general information only. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure that the information provided is accurate, it does not constitute legal or other professional advice.