If you’ve been injured at work due to manual handling accident, perhaps due to little or no training or assistance, then you may be able make a claim for compensation. Surprisingly, manual handling injuries are very common within the workplace, and can usually vary from minor repetitive strain injuries to more serious back injuries. Understandably these types of injuries commonly cause both financial loss and a great deal of inconvenience.
The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 is basically the law which states how manual handling within the workplace should be carried out safely.
It is the duty of your employer to provide suitable and sufficient instructions, training, and if required, assistance when handling heavy or awkward objects. This must be adequate to prevent any foreseeable injuries that would be likely to occur due to lifting and moving objects within the workplace. The Regulations state that each employer should avoid the need for their employees to undertake any manual handling that is likely to cause injury to them, and if manual handling operations are necessary, then the employer should conduct a full risk assessment of the operation to reduce the risk of injury to their employees.
What if my employer provided instructions and training for manual handling operations, but I still managed to injure myself because of this?
If this is the case, then it could be that your injury was sustained due to a lack of assistance, incomplete instructions, poor training or a failure to carry out a full risk assessment of the operation. As an employee, you should be provided with full and suitable instructions and training for the correct lifting technique for particular items. It should also be considered by your employer that you should only be able to lift and carry what you reasonably can. This should be determined through risk assessments, which should have been carried out before you undertake any manual handling.
What if the risk assessments were carried out and I had proper training and instructions, but still ended up injured?
If this has happened, then it could be because the objects you were moving or carrying were more than what should have been reasonably expected of you. Even if you believe that you were manual handling correctly following all the instructions and training you were given, it may be that the reason for your injury is due to a lack of assistance. Often, large and heavy objects may require two, or even more employees to move or carry around. So, if an object was too heavy or too difficult for you to manually handle on your own, your employer has not properly carried out a sufficient risk assessment by the sounds of it; perhaps misjudging and / or miscalculating weight and ability.
Another reason may be due to any obstructions or hurdles that may have come into your path when handling a load, therefore making the task dangerous for you to carry out. If your injury was sustained due to this, then again, this should have been eliminated and prevented when the risk assessment was carried out. An example could be a set of stairs on the route of the lift which is too difficult to navigate whilst lifting a load.
What if my employers and myself have followed every procedure correctly, but I have still ended up injured when carrying out manual handling tasks at work?
A common injury in this circumstance is a repetitive strain injury. This is fairly common if manual handling is a daily task that you carry out in your workplace, caused by constant lifting over a period of time without proper breaks. As previously mentioned, you should only carry out what is reasonably expected of you. So it could be that the amount of manual handling you have carried out in your workplace has been misjudged by your employer. The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 states that “undertaking of any such manual handling operations within a workplace should be kept to the lowest level reasonably practicable.”
So, if you’ve sustained a manual handling injury at work that you believe was due to lack of, or no full and proper instructions, training, and / or risk assessments, then give The Injury Lawyers a call today for free, no obligation advice on whether you can claim on 0800 634 75 75.
