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Your employer has a duty to keep you safe and free from harm. One potential hazard in the workplace is noise. Exposure to excessive levels of noise can cause deafness – deafness caused by industry or employment is often referred to as industrial deafness. As people’s hearing deteriorates with age, many people who have worked in industry may not be aware that they are suffering from industrial deafness. Noise is measured in decibels (dB).

If noise is a potential hazard in your workplace your employer should have carried out a noise assessment or noise survey. This would involve checking the noise levels at different places through the premises and checking the noise levels emitted from all the various types of machinery. Your employer may also evaluate the noise exposure of each individual employer. Noise exposure is averaged out over an 8 hour working day.

Deafness claims are historic in nature as they can involve bringing a claim against one or more of your former employers. In essence you would seek to bring a claim against each and every employer who exposed you to excessive levels of noise after 1963. You cannot bring a claim for exposure to noise where the exposure occurred before 1963. Noise exposure before 1963 may have caused damage to hearing but in law it is classed as non-negligent exposure as employers were not aware of the dangers of noise at that time. A publication in 1963 meant that employers can be held liable for exposure to noise where the exposure occurred after 1963.
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PPE (or Personal Protective Equipment) is of fundamental importance in the workplace to keep workers safe and to enable workers to do their job properly. PPE can include boots, overalls, high visibility vests, gloves, hearing protection, hard hats etc. Without PPE the chances of injury are undoubtedly increased. The purpose of PPE is to ensure workers are kept as safe as possible. The PPE relevant to you would depend on your role and the environment that you work in.

If you think of a building site, the typical PPE is usually hard hats, high visibility vests and boots. On a building site there may be loose bricks overhead so you can see why hard hats are required. High visibility vests are also useful as there may be vehicles coming in and out of the building site. Boots are also necessary and would help prevent injury if anything was dropped onto the workers foot.

If you think of an alternative environment, such as a train depot or power station, PPE should include hearing protection as noise levels may reach levels that could potentially be harmful. On a train depot you would also expect high visibility vests so people can be seen. If a person uses vibratory tools as part of their job, such as jack hammers, gloves may be necessary to help prevent hand arm vibration syndrome (also known as vibration white finger).
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To say someone is at a disadvantage on the open labour market means that, as a result of an accident or injury, they are disadvantaged in finding work, holding down work, gaining a promotion – general career type things etc. You can try and recover compensation if an accident or injury had caused you some kind of disadvantage on the open labour market.

Awards in respect of disadvantage on the open labour market can often be quite big. However this will always depend on the facts of the particular case and the level of handicap.

Say for example you had been working as a painter and decorator all of your life and you sustained a severe injury such as the loss of your right hand. You would have great difficulty carrying on with your job as a painter and decorator because you may need both hands to hold a brush in one and a paint tin in the other. In finding alternative employment you are also at a disadvantage – the potential jobs that you could do are restricted because of your injury.
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Supermarket cages (also known as roll containers, roll cages, roll pallets etc) can be a danger to you, whether you work in a supermarket or simply shop in one. Unfortunately many accidents involving supermarket cages have happened in the past and continue to happen to date.

The Research Report 009 titled “Safety of roll containers” describes a roll container as follows:

“Roll containers are half pallet-sized platforms, with four running castors and with a wire cage used to contain goods during transport. They may be used to transport goods in a lorry between a warehouse and a retail store for instance or within a supermarket to transport goods from the store room to the sales floor.”
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Most people would agree that the manufacturing industry is not what it once was – certainly not in the Steel City where I grew up. However, that is not to say that there is no heavy industry anymore and many people still go to work in factories every day. Most modern factories will of course involve certain types of machinery which the law calls “work equipment”.

Work equipment is any machinery, appliance, apparatus or tool that you use at work for your role. This may be something that your employer has provided or something that you have brought to work yourself. If you are using it as part of your employment then it is classified as work equipment. Work equipment is not the same as personal protective equipment (i.e. gloves, boots and safety helmets) and the two are dealt with by separate regulations.

There are specific rules and regulations that your employer must follow to make sure that you are safe when using various types of work equipment. These regulations are the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 and these set out all the responsibilities that an employer has toward his employees.
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We all know how unpredictable life can be and that – especially with accidents – it is very difficult to know what is going to happen next. This doesn’t mean that we can’t try and prepare though and we should all take care to minimise the potential effects of any accident; this is especially true in the workplace.

If your job involves any type of risk to your health then your employer should issue you with items that will minimise the risks where possible – these items are known as Personal Protective Equipment, or PPE. Types of PPE include: Respirators, Protective Gloves, Protective Footwear, Goggles, Hi-visibility clothing and any other item designed to be worn or used for your health, safety and protection.

In cases where the risks to your health and safety cannot be adequately controlled through other measures then PPE becomes a legal requirement under the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992. These regulations say that employers are responsible for providing, replacing and paying for personal protective equipment as well as training you in how to use it safely and effectively.
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Manual Handling and the techniques involved in moving loads from one place to another has become a mainstay in almost all companies’ health and safety folders. These are techniques designed to reduce the risk of employees injuring themselves and make everybody’s lives easier; but who has the responsibility when it comes to employees’ education in these techniques?

The answer can be found in the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992. These say that under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety Regulations 1999 it is an employers’ responsibility to provide employees with the proper information and training on health and safety matters – this can look like quite a complicated statement as it contains a lot of different pieces of legislation but the message is the same – it is your employers responsibility to make sure that you know what you are doing at work when it comes to manual handling, and the best way to do it.

However, putting this into practice requires a two-way flow of information between you and your employer and means that both of you have roles to play in making sure that injuries are not suffered in the workplace.
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Back in the days before Health and Safety was invented a fall in the workplace due to a trailing cable or wet floor was probably met with a response of “pick your feet up” or “watch where you’re going” or sometimes even laughter.

Even now some employers try and adopt the culture that falling over isn’t so serious (some comedians even make a whole career out of it) but for employees on the receiving end of these accidents it is no laughing matter.

Slips and trips in the workplace can result in anything from bruises to serious injuries. The fact of the matter is that your employer has a responsibility to keep you safe at work and if they have failed to ensure that there are proper procedures to look after your safety then they are at fault.
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It’s likely most people have all heard of selective deafness. Our wives, husbands, partners etc seem to be experts in the field, especially when football or the soaps are on TV! But have you ever considered that it may in fact be a case of industrial deafness rather than selective deafness?

Say, for example, that your husband constantly mishears or ignores what you have said to him. While you may believe it is a case of selective deafness, consider whether your husband has ever worked in a noisy environment, consider if your husband could be suffering from industrial deafness. The sufferer often does not realise that anything is wrong.

It is often a wife, partner or other family member or perhaps a friend that notices a hearing deficit. Industrial deafness does not mean complete deafness; it covers partial and sometimes relatively minor hearing deficiencies.
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The legal duty of an employer is take reasonable care for the health and safety of employees and to reduce the possibility of accidents and injuries at work – including scaffolding accidents if you work with scaffolding.

In respect of scaffolding accidents, some of the main risks are if the scaffolding is on poor foundations, if boards are missing from the platform, or if boards are uneven or of poor quality etc. Of course there are many other risks with scaffolding and it is imperative that scaffolding is erected properly and safely.

The building industry has proven to be a dangerous environment for workers and for the general public. If you are the victim of a scaffolding accident then you may be entitled to make a claim for compensation.
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