A Guide To Explaining Accident At Work Claims And Your Employer’s Responsibility

By Danielle Jordan. Last Updated 6th March 2024. This is our guide on employers’ responsibilities after an accident at work. You will need to know what your employer is responsible for in order to establish whether or not your injury can be blamed on them.

Accidents at work can affect us physically through injury, mentally through psychological illness such as anxiety and depression and financially due to loss of earnings if you are unable to work. People often need to make a claim against their employer if they do not receive enough financial support from sick pay, or if their sick pay runs out.

Some people such as those who are self-employed are not even entitled to sick pay. The Health and Safety Executive offer a lot of useful information about employers’ responsibilities and we have included helpful links here for your information.

To learn more about your employers’ responsibilities after an accident at work, why not check out our video below:

In this guide, we take you through the information you need to know about accident at work employer’s liability claims as well as looking at what types of payout you could receive. If you have further queries after reading this guide, or you’re looking for help with starting a claim, then you can contact our team by calling 0800 073 8804. Or you can reach us online using either our claim online form or the live chat function.

Select a section

1. Was My Employer Responsible For My Accident And Can I Claim?
2. Employer’s Responsibilities Following An Accident At Work?
3. How To Claim For A Work Accident Against My Employer?
4. Examples Of Accidents In The Workplace
5. What Can I Claim For After An Accident At Work?
6. No Win No Fee Solicitors For Accidents At Work

Was My Employer Responsible For My Accident And Can I Claim?

You may be wondering how you can establish employer responsibility for your accident, and whether or not you can make a claim. The duty of your employer, legally known as a duty of care, is set out by the Health and Safety etc. Act 1974 (HASAWA).

All employees are owed a duty of care by their employer. Per their duty of care, your employer must take reasonable steps to ensure your safety while working and in the workplace. If they fail to fulfil this duty, and you are injured as a result, this is known as employer negligence. In order to make an accident at work claim, you must be able to establish employer negligence.

For example, if your employer knowingly provided you with a faulty hard hat, and this caused you to become injured, then you may be able to make a compensation claim.

Contact our team of advisors today to learn more about the criteria for making a claim and your rights after an accident at work in the UK, or read on to learn more.

Employer’s Responsibilities Following An Accident At Work

Following an accident at work, your employer’s responsibilities may include ensuring the incident is recorded in the accident log book and they might need to report it to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The HSE is the national workplace health and safety regulator in Britain.  

If your workplace has 10 or more employees, an accident book is required by law. If the incident resulted in more than three days off work, your employer must ensure that it is recorded. A report in the accident log book can be useful evidence if you decide to make an accident at work claim. 

As part of your employer’s responsibilities, they must report certain incidents to the HSE under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR). These include work-related fatalities, specified injuries to workers, incidents that result in over seven days of absence, non-fatal accidents to members of the public that result in immediate transfer to the hospital for treatment, occupational diseases, and dangerous occurrences or near misses.

If you have any questions about what should be reported or if you would like to get started on a claim, contact one of our advisors.

How To Claim For A Work Accident Against My Employer

As we discussed above, your employer owes you a duty of care at work. Per their employer duties, they must take reasonable steps to ensure your safety whilst you are performing work-related tasks and in the workplace. If you can prove negligence occurred, you might be able to make a personal injury claim.

Collecting sufficient evidence could help support your accident at work claim. Some examples of the evidence you could collect include:

• A completed report in the accident book if your workplace has one on-site.
• The contact information of anyone who witnessed the incident so they can give a statement later on.
• Accident footage, such as from CCTV.
• Photographs of the accident.
• A copy of your medical records stating the type of injury you suffered and any treatment you needed.

Time Limits

If you would like to make an accident at work compensation claim, you must initiate the claims process within the time limit. This is generally three years from the date you sustained injuries. The personal injury claims time limit is set by the Limitation Act 1980.

However, the legislation allows for some exceptions in certain circumstances. These include:

• If the injured person is under 18 at the time of the accident. For these parties, the limitation period is paused until their 18th birthday. However, a court-appointed litigation friend can bring forward a compensation claim on their behalf at any point during this limitation pause. If a litigation friend has not started the claims process for them by the time they turn 18, they will have three years from their 18th birthday to file a claim.
• Injured persons without the mental capacity to manage their own work injury claim. An indefinite suspension is applied to the time limit in these cases. This will last for as long as the party is without the required capacity to manage a claim. A litigation friend can file a personal injury claim for them at any point during this suspension. However, if the injured person recovers the mental capacity needed to manage a compensation claim, then they will have three years from the date they regained this capacity to start one.

If you have any questions about limitation or would like to further discuss your accident at work and employer responsibility following it, please speak to a member of our advisory team.

Examples Of Accidents In The Workplace

As mentioned, your employer’s legal responsibilities include taking reasonable and practicable steps to prevent you from becoming injured in the workplace. This is an employer’s duty of care. If they fail to uphold this duty, it could lead to an accident at work in which you sustain harm. 

Examples of accidents at work that could lead to subsequent harm can include:

• A trip or fall may occur if clutter obstructs a walkway. This could result in you sustaining a broken wrist. 
• A slip accident might happen if a wet floor is not marked with a signpost resulting in you suffering an elbow injury.
• You might have a manual handling accident if your employer does not provide training on the correct lifting techniques causing you to sustain a back injury.
• Your employer might fail to provide necessary personal protective equipment (PPE), such as a hard hat while you are working on a construction site. This could lead to you suffering a head injury. 

Following an accident at work, your employer has a responsibility to reduce the risk of you becoming harmed by the known hazard. If they failed to do so and you became injured, please contact our advisors. They can determine whether you’re eligible to begin a personal injury claim.

What Can I Claim For After An Accident At Work?

General damages – general damages usually covers any pain and suffering you have experienced as a result of your injury. This is usually with regard to physical and psychological suffering. Whilst physical injury is reasonably easy to quantify, psychological injury is more difficult. This covers conditions such as anxiety and depression or post-traumatic shock.

Special damages – special damages are to compensate any expenses that have been paid as a direct result of the injury. This can include loss of earnings, medical expenses, travel expenses, child care expense and caring expenses, it also includes damages to cover financial costs if you have been unable to attend an event due to the injury.

Contact us today to talk about the details of your case and we will help you to work out what kind of damages you are eligible to claim for.

Accidents At Work Compensation Examples

After your employer breaches their duty of care at work, resulting in an accident that leaves you injured, you might wonder what you compensation you could receive in a successful claim. In this section, we’ll look at accidents at work compensation examples using the 2022 edition of the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG).

The JCG is often used by legal professionals to work out estimates for settlement figures. It features compensation ranges for a variety of injuries. Typically, the more severe the injury, the higher the payout.

Please take note that the figures featured below do not represent the settlement you could receive. Solicitors will also take into account any special damages before offering you an indication of your final award figure. It should also be noted that the top figure was not taken from the JCG.

Speak to our advisors and they could give you an estimate of your compensation payout depending on your situation. For example, if you are a taxi driver who was injured whilst working, you may be wondering about the average payout for a car accident at work.

No Win No Fee Solicitors For Accidents At Work

Employers’ legal responsibilities include taking all reasonably practicable steps to ensure the health, safety and welfare of their employees whilst performing work-related activities.

Should they neglect their employer duty of care, and you are injured as a result, you might be eligible to make an accident at work claim. If you decide to claim because a breach in the workplace duty of care caused your injuries, you may wish to hire a No Win No Fee solicitor to handle your case. Their representation could be funded by the terms of a Conditional Fee Agreement (CFA).

This means that you generally won’t have to pay upfront for your solicitor’s services. If it is determined that a breach in the employer duty of care caused you to suffer and you are awarded compensation, a legally limited success fee will be taken from your award. However, when a claim funded this way isn’t successful, the solicitor typically won’t charge for their services.

Our advisors can discuss your potential claim if you’ve been injured in a workplace accident. If it seems that your claim is eligible, you could be passed on to our solicitors. To get in touch:

• Contact us online
• Call 0800 073 8804
• Use the live chat

Thank you for reading our guide on employers’ responsibilities for an accident at work.