The Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 state that an employer must provide, pay for, risk assess, and maintain protective equipment to employers where their health is at risk. Eye protections falls within the scope of Personal Protective Equipment, or PPE as it is known in short.
Common examples where eye protection could be necessary are:
- On building sites where debris may get in to eyes.
- When working with materials like wood or metal that is being cut or manipulated, causing a risk of flying particles going in the eye.
- When working with dangerous chemicals.
It is your employer’s responsibility to risk assess tasks to see what PPE may be required, and if it is required, they must pay for and provide it. They are also responsible to maintain the equipment, and they must ensure that training is provided so employees know how to use it correctly.
So if you work in an environment where there are particles or chemicals that could harm your eyes, your employer is legally bound to provide you with equipment to stop you from being injured. If they fail to do so, simply put, they should be liable to compensate you.
A failure to provide PPE where reasonable is one of the most common examples when it comes to people making a work injury claim for compensation in relation to PPE. There also needs to be consideration taken to ensure that PPE can be used and it does not obstruct your work. If goggles restricted your view making it too hard to do your job, you should not be expected to put yourself at risk in order to perform your tasks.
For a work accident claim for a PPE issue, we offer a full No Win, No Fee service if we think you have a good enough chance of winning the claim. We will also allow you to keep all 100% of your compensation – unlike other lawyers who will normally take up to 25% from your payout to cover legal fees that the government have stopped us recovering!
Employers have insurance which is there to protect their employees so give us a call today for free and friendly advice about your options for claiming.
