I spent three hours this morning with a extremely nice solicitor who’d travelled all the way from Liverpool to Whipsnade assist over a couple of claims management issues. Dealing with third party claims is not an uncommon aspect of being a Chartered Safety & Health Practitioner. In fact it is almost expected condition of the profession. It is, afterall, what I’m chartered to do. That and send people off on international fieldwork.
But some context is always need to be given to all this. More important specifically about what is required and what is urban myth or unrelated. Whilst it is easy to be trigger-happy when people hear the words “Health” and “Safety” it is worse when it is disregard in the face of growing fatality, injury and illness rates caused within workplace. Key annual figures from 2008/09 included:
- 1.2 million people who worked during the last year were suffering from an illness (long standing as well as new cases) they believed was caused or made worse by their current or past work. 551 000 of these were new cases.
- 180 workers were killed at work, a rate of 0.6 per 100 000 workers.
- 131 895 other injuries to employees were reported under RIDDOR, a rate of 502.2 per 100 000 employees.
- 246 000 reportable injuries occurred, according to the Labour Force Survey, a rate of 870 per 100 000 workers.
- 29.3 million days were lost overall (1.24 days per worker), 24.6 million due to work-related ill health and 4.7 million due to workplace injury.
The concept that employees should be safe at work is not a recent phenomenon. It dates back to The Factories Act 1802 (sometimes also called the "Health and Morals of Apprentices Act") which regulated factory conditions, especially in regard to child workers in cotton and woollen mills. The biggest revision being in 1844 when it recognised that:
- Accidental death must be reported to a surgeon and investigated.
- Thorough records must be kept regarding the provisions of the act.
- Machinery was to be fenced in.
Legislation was then developed in the 1970s to streamline the many different statutes governing safety issues which had developed since this period, and not least with the exponential growth of industry, which made management responsible for the provision and maintenance of adequate standards and policies. This ground-breaking and fundamental piece of legislation was perhaps unoriginally called the Health & Safety at Work Etc. Act 1974. The most curious part being the “Etc.”. Significantly it reads: "It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees"
However whilst there are a vast number of different statutes governing safety issues - and you can almost certainly trust me that it really does feel exhaustingly vast sometimes - it is important to understand that health and safety isn’t singularly governed only by legislation.
Under what is known as ‘common law’ all employers have a duty of care imposed on them to protect their employees. There is also a term implied into all employment contracts requiring employers to take care of their employees’ health and safety. Should an employer fail to take reasonable care in any of these areas, an employee may have a number of claims, including the ability to resign and claim constructive unfair dismissal and a personal injury claim in appropriate cases.
Since the legalisation of 'no win no fee' arrangements (more accurately known as Conditional Fee Agreements, and covered in more detail in an article elsewhere on this site), so-called claims management firms have become considerably more ubiquitous. These organisations arrange the entire process of claiming compensation, apparently simplifying what can otherwise be a difficult process. However, the merits of these organisations have been repeatedly called into question by commentators who suggest that they are exploiting those with legitimate claims and lessening the financial impact of any compensation that is granted.
Third party claims also extend beyond the employer and to the owner as well. Much of what I can process as my casework is based on these. As the saying goes, from the absurd to the sublime.
Best thing to do is keep your records, train your teams, checks things out, keep and eye on the horizon and remember that an inspection, investigation, claim or some sort of blame is always around the corner. Conversely, the same corner can bring you prosperity, good fortune and success. Just hard to say which will come along.
Böber
