Hand injury compensation: What to do if your employer provides inadequate hand protection
Published: 02:55PM BST 02 Dec 2010
According to the Health and Safety Executive, 6,818 employees reported suffering hand injuries at work during 2009-2010, with 2,017 deemed major injuries.
Employees are protected by various regulations covering health and safety in the workplace, and under them employers are required to carry out assessments of the tasks their employees are asked to undertake, and in turn address the potential for any employee to be injured in carrying out those tasks.
One of the most obvious and immediate ways an employer can protect employees against a risk of injury is by issuing appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE).
Employers have a number of duties and obligations under the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992. The main one is that personal protective equipment is to be supplied and used at work wherever there are risks to health and safety that cannot be adequately controlled in other ways.
Hands are particularly vulnerable to abrasions, cuts and punctures, temperature extremes, impact, chemicals, electric shock, skin infection, disease or contamination. Options available to employers and employees to safeguard against these types of risks include: gloves, gauntlets and mitts.
Other regulations may apply, for example, gloves used to prevent dangerous chemicals penetrating the skin would be covered by the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002.
An employer is not entitled to charge an employee for providing personal protective equipment, including an agency worker, if they are legally regarded as an employee.
Access Legal from Shoosmiths has pursued numerous successful claims for employees who sustained hand injuries at work.
Here is a case study about an employee who won damages despite his employer disputing liability.
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prove who
caused the
personal injury"
Richard Brett,
Team Leader
