A hairdresser had to undergo an operation to repair her nose after breathing in minute hair clippings over the course of her 30-year career.

The clippings lodged in the skin inside her nose, causing an infection which eventually led to a hole developing in her septum that had to be surgically repaired.

She now runs her own salon where she wears a protective surgical mask, but had previously worked for employers who refused to provide masks for their employees, claiming it 'looked bad for business'.

Such alleged disregard for the welfare of employees is a potential breach of existing health and safety law, which could give rise to a personal injury claim.

Employee's rights

Employees are protected by a number of regulations aimed at promoting health and safety in the work place.

Such regulations, as well as imposing a general legal obligation on employers to ensure that their employees are safe at work, include the provision of appropriate personal protective equipment, for example the provision of a mask, to avoid (where possible) or reduce the risk of sustaining an injury at work.

Under these regulations, employers are legally obliged to risk assess tasks carried out by their employees to specifically address the possibility of their employees sustaining an injury at work.

This not only applies to immediate and obvious risks – such as the provision of protective equipment like hard hats or reinforced boots for construction workers – but also apply to the risk of sustaining a cumulative condition. A well known example of this is exposure to asbestos over a sustained period, leading to mesothelioma, an asbestos-related cancer.

Certain sections of the press increasingly tend to be dismissive of health and safety legislation and say it has 'gone mad' and the Government is apparently taking steps to review the existing legislation.

But the legislation is fundamentally designed to protect employees from risks that they encounter at work, which at first sight may be innocuous and not deemed capable of injury, but over a period of years the cumulative effect of such exposure can result in serious injury.

Arguably a hairdresser couldn't entirely avoid contact with hair clippings, but the essence of the legislation is that where the avoidance of risk isn't possible, then such risks must be minimised.

In this case, the provision of a surgical mask would arguably have at least minimised the risks inherent in the role of a hairdresser.

In recent years the number of high street nail bars has increased dramatically. Interestingly, the employees at such places can often be seen wearing masks to minimise the impact of sustained installation of the dust created when filing nails, a routine part of their job.

This case shows, too, that not all occupational diseases are the result of working in what are now viewed as 'heavy' or 'old' industries. The following can all be contracted by people working in a range of professions: contact dermatitis, allergic asthma, noise induced deafness, work-related musculo-skeletal disorders, and bladder cancer.

For the vast majority of personal injury compensation claims, the time limit within which a claim must be brought is three years.

However, the starting date for that period can be later if it's shown that the 'date of knowledge' is later than the date of the cause of action.

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