OK – so we do have a lot of health and safety rules and regulations to comply with nowadays. We have training manuals to read, instruction videos to watch, and endless amounts of forms to sign to confirm we have thoroughly digested the information we are exposed to. But – has it really gone mad? Are we doing too much?
I think this is one heck of a hot topic for debate. Personally, I side with the sensible approach, whilst maintaining the importance that even the “little things” simply cannot be missed. Yes – we all have an obvious duty to look out for our own personal wellbeing – so there are instances when an accident really is the fault of the injured person (or just no one at all!) through a lack of common sense. But, if the necessary checks weren’t in place, and the required training was never completed, people’s health and safety is easily at risk.
I agree – there is a lot of red tape around it – but it’s far better to have it there than to not have it in place. For example:
- Work equipment needs to be regularly inspected and maintained to ensure it doesn’t become faulty, and ultimately injure the user.
- Shop floors need to be regularly inspected to check for any spillages to clear them up as quickly as possible – otherwise someone is going to slip and ultimately end up injured.
- Training in how to properly conduct a manual handling task is necessary to prevent an injury. How is anyone supposed to know to lift with their legs rather than their back if no one ever tells them?
It can all be boiled down to a couple of major points – people need to be taught properly, and people need to know their responsibilities.
So for the other half of this topic – has our increase in the focus of health and safety stemmed from our ‘compensation culture?’ To be honest, there really isn’t any such thing as a ‘compensation culture’ – it’s a lot of overblown hype which we can thank our dear media for. It’s true that there is a misunderstanding, and a lot of people believe they are entitled to compensation if they ever have an accident which they believe wasn’t their fault – but for a claim to be successful, there has to be someone else to blame. If there is no one else to clearly blame for an accident, then it is just that – an unfortunate accident.
Lord Young – whom has been referenced in many media articles – actually in his report of recommendations for government, titled Common Sense, Common Safety, concludes quite clearly that Britain’s ‘compensation culture’ is fuelled by media stories, with the problem being one of “perception rather than reality.” The report goes on to mention there is an issue arising from people’s awareness that it is easy to make a claim without any financial risk that has created a cause for concern. People are often worried their actions will lead to a law suit, and fear the high costs involved if a claim is ever to be made.
When you look at the two together, you can see that they actually go hand in hand. The ‘compensation culture’ which has seemingly stemmed from the over-zealous need for the media to sell a story has potentially led to the increase in health and safety bureaucracy through a fear of being sued. You could of course argue that this is an utterly rubbish conclusion, and claim that the increased awareness of the victims’ right to claim has led to an increase in legal action, and subsequently an increase in health and safety bureaucracy. Either way, the apparent fear of being sued has increased health and safety to a level that many judge as unnecessary.
There are so many ways you can look at it. Hey – you could simply ignore everything I’ve written on the subject given that I am a New Claims Adviser at a firm of personal injury lawyers and could easily be seen as biased! But there are a few truths that remain constant:
- You can only claim if someone else clearly is at fault for your injuries in an accident that is clearly foreseeable.
- Lawyers do not get paid for cases that don’t win – and we don’t charge the clients – so we only ever take on claims we deem to have a good chance of success. So wastage should be largely limited.
- A focus on the importance of health and safety can easily be a very good thing – the more of it, the safer we are.
- If we all stuck to the rules and regulations that are in place – there wouldn’t be any claims to make.
You can make of it what you want. A lawyer and a victim will probably tell you claiming is a wonderful way of helping injured victims out. Ask a business or an insurance company, and they will likely disagree…
