If your job demands that you have to work at low heights and kneel, or just kneel down in general, your employer is bound by law to provide you with personal protective equipment (often known as PPE) to protect your knees from being injured.
Sustaining a knee injury from kneeling can be easy to do – and unfortunately knee injuries can result in severe and long term disability. So it is important that employers abide by the law. Engineers, plumbers, electricians – anyone who may have to work in small spaces on their knees should be provided with things such as knee pads and soft matting to kneel on.
The Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 state the following:
4.(1) Every employer shall ensure that suitable personal protective equipment is provided to his employees who may be exposed to a risk to their health or safety while at work except where and to the extent that such risk has been adequately controlled by other means which are equally or more effective.
Legislation: www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1992/2966/contents/made
Tasks that you are asked to do should be risk assessed so your employer can identify what risks to your health may be evidence. So there is never the excuse that your employer “wasn’t aware” of the risk!
We see injuries ranging from beat knee related symptoms, fluid on the knee joints, tears to the ligaments, and a whole host of other problems. Most people may end up needing either keyhole or very invasive surgery which can result in a lengthy period of rehabilitation, time off work, and lifelong difficulties.
Because knee injuries can be so severe, if your employer fails in their duty to abide by PPE regulations, you should make a claim for a work injury compensation. We can help you – your employer should have insurance that we can claim from to allow you to recover compensation for the pain, suffering, and loss of amenity caused, as well as any lost earnings from time off work, future lost earnings, or other expenses and losses.
We offer a full No Win, No Fee agreement and we do offer 100% compensation agreements for work accidents and injuries. So if you need our help if your employer has failed in their duty to abide by PPE regulations, leaving you with knee injuries, call 0800 634 7575 today.