In the care industry, there is often a lot of work involving moving and lifting patients who are immobile or have difficulties moving themselves. This is still a form of manual handling, and as such, care workers need to perform such tasks in the right way and there is a duty on the employer to make sure it is done right.
So what happens if you are a care worker and you are injured as a result of lifting and / or manoeuvring a patient? Can you make a claim for personal injury compensation?
What could your employer have done?
This is the key question we need to ask – what more could your employer have done to have prevented this accident from happening? Could they have employed more staff to assist if a patient is particularly heavy? Could they have installed a hoist, or was the hoist being used unsuitable? Have you been trained?
If more could have been done to have prevented the injury, then there may be a claim to answer for. The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 impose an important duty on to your employer to firstly avoid the need for manual handling. If it cannot be avoided, any activity needs to be properly risk assessed and all staff involved need to be properly trained.
A risk assessment should identify factors such as the amount of people needed, and how to perform the lift safely. If this isn’t done, they are in breach of the regulations.
If there isn’t enough people due to staffing shortages, this is no excuse. The employer is responsible for ensuring that their own risk assessments are upheld. And as I said earlier, avoiding the need is just as key – if equipment can be used, like a hoist, it should be used.
So if there is more that could have been done, you may be entitled to make a claim for personal injury compensation from your employer’s insurers. The insurers are there to cover the employer in situations when they are in breach of the law and an employee has been injured.
Manual handling injuries, which commonly involve the back, can be very painful, very debilitating, and can result in a lot of loss from time off work. Problems can be long term and treatment is probably going to be needed, which we can organise on a private basis for our clients.
It’s important, especially in back injury cases, to make a claim for the money that is owed to you.
100% Compensation for Care Worker Injuries
If this has happened to you, we offer a 100% compensation agreement to our clients. Most other lawyers will want to take up to a quarter of your claim so be wary who you ask for advice from!
Call us now on 0800 634 75 75 and we can talk you through the process step by step in plain and simple English – and we can let you keep all of your payout.
