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Most of us enjoy eating out every now and again – not only is it nice for someone else to cook for us, but it gives us the chance to try different types of food that we probably wouldn’t cook for ourselves. Hopefully, the food we have eaten will have been of a high standard and made for an enjoyable night out. However, in some of the more unfortunate situations, eating out has caused us to suffer from food poisoning.

In some cases, food poisoning is of course unpleasant and the symptoms can be mild. In these types of cases, the bug usually lasts no more than 24 hours and we feel much better when it is out of our system – with the lesson learned never to eat there again! However, there are more extreme cases of food poisoning that can often cause the person suffering the disease to become extremely; ill and in some cases place them in hospital.

Food poisoning is caused by bacteria, toxins, or viruses that have contaminated food or drink. All food should be prepared in conditions that abide by stringent health and safety regulations.
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A supermarket is something we are all familiar with – in fact, it’s a store that we probably visit at least a couple of times a month to get the necessary food and supplies we need for our household. Hopefully when we visit our supermarket we will be able to get in and get out with the goods we need and with as little stress as possible. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case.

Believe it or not – supermarket accidents are actually quite common. In fact, they are one of the most common types of claims that we deal with at the Injury Lawyers. With dozens of trolleys rushing around in a small space, along with shelves stacked with goods, a spillage is always possible – it really isn’t much of a surprise that accidents happen.

In order to combat such hazards, supermarkets employers have to carry out regular checks around the store to keep the possibility of an accident occurring to a minimum. Staff will need to check for any spillages and make sure that shelves are stacked safely to avoid the risk of any products falling over. In order for the supermarket to keep up to date with such checks, staff will be required to sign a sheet every time they carry out their checks. Read More

A repetitive strain injury (RSI) is a type of injury that is caused when a muscle in the body becomes damaged due to over-using it. The most common cause of such an injury is using a computer in the work place. Working in an office is what some of us probably think of as the safest place to work – but it can in fact cause an RSI injury.

Some of us may think that a repetitive strain injury is actually quite rare; they are more popular than you’d think, and definitely more popular than the economy would like. Such injuries cost the economy an average of £300million a year because of lost working hours. Like a lot of other injuries, there are procedures both you and your employer can carry out to prevent you and other staff suffering from an RSI.

Your employer can buy equipment such as wrist supports that you can use when sat at the computer – this takes some of the pressure away from the muscles. Your employer can also reduce the risk of you suffering such an injury by ensuring that you take regular breaks. This will give the muscles time to rest, and decreases the chances of an injury being caused.
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With Christmas just gone and the sales underway, it is certain that a lot of us will have bought ourselves or someone else something new this year. It may be that our partner bought us that much anticipated pair of shoes we have been dreaming about, or that we bought our child that toy they had been obsessing over for months! Either way, whatever product we have given or received, it will have needed to pass a number of health and safety checks before it reached us.

Hopefully the gift you sent or received will have been what they wanted and brought them happiness around this wonderful time of year. Unfortunately, (here’s the depressing bit) not all products will have brought happiness – in fact, in some cases, some of them may have actually being defective. A defective product comes in many forms and often causes the person using the product to suffer an injury.

In some cases the company that supplied the product will realise that it is unsafe before anyone becomes injured, and will conduct what is called a “product recall”. This is where all the products that are seen to be harmful are collected back in by the supplier to prevent anyone from suffering such an injury.
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When we are walking around, the last thing we expect is to suffer a fall – not only would it be embarrassing, but in some circumstances, it could cause us to suffer a serious injury. When children are out playing on the street we often see them trip and fall over; this is expected. However, as an adult, we expect to be able to walk along a pavement without anything tripping us up!

A fall on a pavement may cause us to break a bone or hit our head, causing us to suffer a head injury. It could have a number of other effects such as causing us to suffer a whiplash injury. A whiplash injury is caused by anything which forces our neck to jolt either sideways, backwards, or forwards.

A fall on the pavement can be caused by a number of things – it may be that we have had a series of bad weather which has caused the pavements to become slippery. Or it may be that those responsible for maintaining the pavement have failed to do so, leaving cracks and holes – all potential neglgience for the council. Read More

A lot of us use the roads on a daily basis; we drive the same route to work every day, drive to our local supermarket and visit friends as often as we can. Having a car makes doing certain things much easier than they would be without one.

When we travel on the roads we are all aware that road traffic accidents happen, but like a lot of things, we generally think they won’t happen to us. Most of us have made at least one mistake on the roads, whether it was pulling out in front of a vehicle or stalling our vehicle – hopefully we managed to correct the mistake and no injury was caused.

If we were unfortunate enough to become involved in a road traffic accident, a lot of us would panic at the scene and wouldn’t know what to do. Below is a guide on the steps that you should take if you do become involved in an accident:
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When we’re at work the last thing we expect to happen in our working day is for us to become involved in an accident; unfortunately these things do happen. If the accident you were involved in was caused due to the conditions which you were working in, then you may have a potential case to claim for compensation.

At work your employer has a duty to ensure that the environment you are working in is safe, and that safety regulations and standards have been met. Standards to ensure employees are safe when at work are regulated by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). They often carry out checks to ensure employers are meeting these standards.

If you become involved in an accident at work you should not be afraid to speak out about making a claim; by law all employers should have employer’s liability insurance which covers them for any accidents that may occur to their staff in the workplace.
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If we suffer injury in an accident that wasn’t our fault then it is likely we will want to know who was responsible for the accident. It may be that the accident left us with severe injuries that prevented us from living our life the way we had before. It may have resulted in a loss of earnings for us because we couldn’t return to work for a while. Whatever the implications an accident has on your life, making an injury compensation claim will help.

When making a claim, a number of factors will be assessed, such as the time of the accident, whether it was light or dark, the weather conditions when the accident took place, and the actions of all parties involved at the time of the accident. In a road accident, this may include whether a driver has indicated, had the correct lighting on their vehicles, and what speed they were driving at.

If there were passengers in the vehicles at the time of the accident, they can also make an injury compensation claim –  a number of factors will also be assessed to see how their injuries were caused. If the passenger wasn’t wearing a seatbelt at the time of the accident, they can be found to have shown contributory negligence towards their injuries.
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When we become involved in an accident, there are a number of injuries we could suffer from; it usually requires a GP to look over the injuries we have suffered and diagnose them before we can fully understand how severe the injuries are.

A whiplash injury is commonly associated with car accidents – the impact of a vehicle when it collides causes the neck to jolt either sideways, backwards, or forwards. Even if a vehicle collides when travelling at a slow speed it is still likely that any people in the vehicle may become victim to a whiplash injury.

Although car accidents are the most common cause of whiplash injuries, they can also be caused by other accidents such as slips, trips and falls. If you have suffered a whiplash injury it may take a while for the injury or any pain from the injury to become apparent.
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The government have put a number of road traffic laws into place to ensure that all road users are safe when using the roads. One of the laws, the one we are more than familiar with, is speeding. All of the roads through Britain have an assigned speed limit. This informs drivers of the maximum speed they can travel at in the area.

If a driver is driving over the speed limit and is caught, they may receive a fixed penalty. If a driver repeats the same offence, the penalty may increase and they may end up losing their driving licence. Speeding is extremely dangerous, and speed limits are put into place for safety reasons and must therefore be adhered to at all times.

If someone is speeding and becomes involved in a collision, it is likely that they will be found negligent if the speeding was the cause of the accident. If that accident caused you to suffer injury, it is likely that you will be able to make an injury compensation claim. 
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