Many jobs, particularly those involving a great deal of manual handling, put people at risk of sustaining a twisting back injury. It doesn’t take much to twist whilst carrying a box to injure your back. Whether you pull some ligaments or dislocate a disc in your back, the pain can be agonising and severely debilitating.
If your job involves manual handling, there is an important duty on your employer to prove you with manual handling training and instruction. The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 state the following:
4.—(1) Each employer shall—
(a)so far as is reasonably practicable, avoid the need for his employees to undertake any manual handling operations at work which involve a risk of their being injured; or
(b)where it is not reasonably practicable to avoid the need for his employees to undertake any manual handling operations at work which involve a risk of their being injured—
(i)make a suitable and sufficient assessment of all such manual handling operations to be undertaken by them, having regard to the factors which are specified in column 1 of Schedule 1 to these Regulations and considering the questions which are specified in the corresponding entry in column 2 of that Schedule,
(ii)take appropriate steps to reduce the risk of injury to those employees arising out of their undertaking any such manual handling operations to the lowest level reasonably practicable, and
(iii)take appropriate steps to provide any of those employees who are undertaking any such manual handling operations with general indications and, where it is reasonably practicable to do so, precise information on—
(aa)the weight of each load, and
(bb)the heaviest side of any load whose centre of gravity is not positioned centrally.
The above is basically taken from the regulations outlined here. It isn’t difficult to see that there is a clear duty on your employer to make sure that any manual handling operations carried out at work do not cause an injury. The way this is achieved is with regular training, supervision, and risk assessments for any manual handling activities.
So if you are at work and you twist your body to put a load from a forklift on to a table (as an example) and you injure yourself, can you make a claim? Whether you can make a claim or not can be entirely dependent on one key factor: did you know that twisting your body could cause you an injury?
If not, do you not know this because your employer hasn’t provided you with any training or risk assessed the task you are doing? If the answer to that question is yes, you may have a work injury compensation case.
So get in touch with us for free advice about your rights when making a compensation claim for a twisting back injury at work. Our free claims helpline number is 0800 634 75 75.
