Depending on your choice of profession, you may find yourself exposed to all sorts of weird, wonderful, and potentially dangerous equipment that is necessary for you to use to carry out your job. If you’re mainly office based like me, the only equipment I use other than my computer is a phone, a pen, and a stapler now and then! So there isn’t much danger in it for me – although if you are computer based, make sure you’ve done your Display Screen Equipment tests…
Alternatively, those of you working on a construction site will be using power tools, ladders, cement mixers, plant machinery, and all sorts of potentially lethal things; so it goes without saying that adequate training and supervision is needed for the use of this kind of work equipment…
The Law
There are loads of regulations surrounding work equipment, with the majority of them being covered under the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1992 – or as its informally known, PUWER! These rules and regulations impose the duty on your employers to ensure that work equipment is safe to use, and that you are safe in using it as well.
For more information on the ins and outs of the regulations, visit these sites http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg291.pdf, http://www.healthandsafety.co.uk/provwrk.htm
The gist and point of these regulations is to ultimately ensure that you, as the valued employee, do not end up injured or harmed through the use of work equipment – especially when so many simple accidents can be so easily avoided!
How This Affects YOU
Basically, any equipment you have to use at work to help you do your job should be covered under the regulations, so long as they are supplied by your employer specifically for the job at hand. So if you injure yourself using a piece of equipment that is designated for another task, or by using your own equipment as oppose to your employers, you risk injury and little chance of a claim.
Your employer must therefore supply, maintain, and replace all work equipment as and when it is necessary to do so. You need to be sufficiently trained in the use of work equipment, with potential dangers of its use being highlighted to you, and the equipment should have appropriate warning signs, guards, or other measures to keep you safe as and when necessary as well. If needs be, you should be supervised whilst using the equipment too.
Your responsibility is to make sure you use the right work equipment for the right job, as instructed, and use it in accordance with your training. What I mean by this is that your own failure to use work equipment safely leaves you open to obvious injury, and again, potentially little chance of a claim.
What Classes as Work Equipment?
As I’ve sort of briefly touched on above, work equipment is basically anything that you need to do your job. I mentioned above that I need a computer to do my job. If you are a window cleaner, you either need ladders or those long stretchy cleaning tools I’ve seen you guys use nowadays to do your job. That’s work equipment. If you’re a bricklayer, you need cement and a trowel at least. If you’re a joiner, you probably need a decent saw, hand or powered, and perhaps an automatic drill, some screws, a hammer, and some nails. All these fall within the category of work equipment.
If you drive lorries for a living, that lorry you drive around every day is classed as work equipment too. You couldn’t deliver three or four tonnes of frozen fish on your back now could you? The lorry you drive to deliver it is classed as your work equipment
Making a Compensation Claim
If you are injured at work through the use of work equipment, dependant on the circumstances surrounding how you were injured depends on whether you can make a personal injury claim or not. If your employer has failed in any of the duties they have for you, you have a good chance of a winning claim. If your accident and injuries were entirely preventable but your employer has failed in the important duty of care they have for you, you may well be owed thousands of pounds in compensation for your pain and suffering.
In some circumstances, your employer is strictly liable for an accident. The way the regulations are worded means that your employer could end up having to pay out if you were injured in an accident that could not have been prevented through inspection and maintenance. This is only in particular cases however; but the fact remains that the high volume of regulations and what they impose on your employer leaves you with a good chance of a winning claim in many circumstances.
The best way of finding out if you have a claim for compensation is to give us a call on 0800 634 75 75 today. That’s our free claims helpline – and at the end of it is a friendly advisor who will be able to have a free and friendly, no obligation, chat about your accident, and let you know in minutes whether or not you have a claim for compensation.
If you do, we could easily help you out using our Genuine No Win, No Fee system that guarantees you 100% compensation if you win, and no costs to pay if you lose.
Your employer has a legal obligation to have a policy of employer’s liability insurance in place to cover you for accidents at work – give us a call and we will let you know if you are eligible to claim from it.
