Accidents at Work Lawyers in Cardiff
When you’re in a workplace, the law puts certain duties on the business to encourage them to keep you, your colleagues, and anyone else, safe from accidents at work. It requires them to ‘take all reasonable steps’ to prevent you from suffering harm. They’re also required to inform you about health and safety issues that could affect you, and help you take action to lower the risks to yourself. If the business fails to fulfil these duties, and you suffer harm as a result, you have a right to claim compensation.
These duties don’t just end at direct employees. If you are a contractor, subcontractor, self-employed, or even just a visitor to the site, the business still has to take all reasonable steps to minimise the risk of injury or illness to you.
Have you been in an accident at work in Wales? We can help you.
If your employer has not done what the law has required to keep you safe, then they are acting negligently. If their negligence results in you being injured, then you have the right to claim compensation for the injury that results from their negligence.
What counts as negligence is based in a complicated series of laws and results of rulings laid down by courts over the decades, so it’s important that you get expert guidance; but don’t worry, when it comes to accidents at work, we are the experts.
What does my Employer need to do?
Before any work is done, your employer should carry out risk assessments to determine the risks you face, and determine what actions should be taken to lower these risks.
Where there are risks to you, you should be told about them and be given adequate training to mitigate any potential harm and ensure that you can do your job properly and safely.
Your employer is also required to log serious accidents that occur at work. They need to display a certificate confirming that they have employer’s liability insurance. And ensure that you are not left out in the cold if you suffer an injury at work.
Your employer should also give you adequate safety equipment to protect you, and ensure that all tools and equipment you use have adequate safety guards installed, as well as being in a proper functioning order. Prevention is better than cure when it comes to lessening the damage caused by accidents at work.
If you’re not sure if your employer has done everything reasonable to keep you safe, or if you have been given adequate training, you should talk to us about your injury. There are a lot of regulations and other legal requirements that employers are required to follow. At Accident Claims Cardiff, our team in Cardiff can help guide you through these to help determine if your employer may be responsible for your injuries.
What sorts of injuries can I claim for in Cardiff?
When people think of workplace injuries, they often think of the big, life changing injuries in places like factories and construction sites. But it’s easy to forget that even relatively safe office environments can have injuries too, such as repetitive strain injury or damage brought on by posture.
Slips, trips, and falls can happen almost anywhere, and are an extremely common form of workplace injury. Electric shocks can happen in most workplace environments also. Tinnitus and deafness are common in high noise environments like construction and factories, but can also happen in call centres and offices with a lot of phone work.
Any injury, illness, or disease that you get at work, if it is the result of your employer not doing what they should be doing, could result in your employer being required to compensate you.
Accidents at Work — What can I claim for if I am injured at work?
Employees have an automatic right to statutory sick pay if they take more than 3 days off work and earn more than £111 per week. For most workers, statutory sick pay is £87.55 per week, and it begins on the fourth day off work, and it can be paid for 28 weeks in a year. In addition, you may be entitled to further sick pay, depending on the contract you agreed to when you took up employment. At Accident Claims Cardiff, our team can help ensure you are getting what you are entitled to.
For the injury itself, you can also claim compensation. The goal of compensation is to put you back where you should have been before the accident. This can sometimes be hard to calculate depending on the injury sustained, but can include lump sum payments, or ongoing treatment payments. It is important to remember that any claim for compensation must be logged within 3 years of the accident. If you have suffered an injury within the past 3 years, please contact one of the specialist personal injury team members in the Cardiff area as soon as possible.
“I’ve been in an accident at work, what should I do now?”
- Ensure that your injury is recorded in the “accident book” — your employer is required to have one of these, and is required to list all accidents that result in at least 3 days off work.
- If your injury was very serious, such as a serious burn, fracture or amputation, then ensure that your accident is reported to the Health and Safety Executive. The same applies in the event of a dangerous incident, like gas or a scaffolding failure, you developed a workplace disease, or you were not being able to perform your work for any more than seven days.
- Call us, and together we can explore the right options for your claim.
When you talk to us, we’ll take some information from you about the accident at work, and the circumstances that led to you being injured.
We’ll need to know when the accident occurred, the details of any witnesses there may have been, and any medical reports or certificates you’ve had from your doctors. If you have anything showing other expenses, such as proof of lost earnings or any other out-of-pocket expenses, we’ll need to see those too.
Depending on the situation, we might have to consult some medical experts. We’ll have them look at your injuries, so we can get a full assessment of the situation.
Once we have a full picture, we’ll be able to give you guidance as to if we think you have a claim, your chances of success, and how much we think your claim will be worth. We’ll liaise with the other side and try to find a settlement that you will be happy with.
In some cases, we do have to take a case to court. This can be intimidating, but we are skilled in pursuing litigation and will do our best to ensure that you get the compensation you deserve. We’ll inform you if we think this is the right course of action, and what we think your chances are.
Contact our Specialist Accident at Work Lawyers for Cardiff
You don’t have to worry about losing your job — your employer cannot sack you for making a claim for an accident at work. You don’t have to worry about the costs, either — if you don’t win, there’s no fee; call our expert personal injury team in Cardiff today, and we can help put things right.
If you have suffered a workplace injury, our work accident lawyers ** can help you claim compensation through our no win, no fee* service. Call us on 02921 682 687^ or contact us online.
