Are you sure that your dermatitis was caused at work? If you don’t think you are to blame for your skin condition, suspect your working conditions were the cause and want to investigate making a claim for compensation, then this will be a primary consideration. The obvious test as to whether or not the cause of your skin complaint is work related is three-fold:
1) Does is your dermatitis get better when you are not at work, e.g. over weekends or after having taken a period of annual holiday?
2) Does it get better or disappear when you protect your hands from contact with the water or other irritant or allergenic substances you use at work which might be cause of your dermatitis?
3) Are you allergic to any of the substances you come into contact with at work?
If the answer to any of combination of these questions is yes, there is a high probability that your dermatitis was caused at work. A specialist personal injury solicitor has the expertise to be able to conclusively establish (or not) a causal link between your employment and your dermatitis. Once this link was established it would then be necessary to demonstrate that your employer had failed to take every reasonably practicable step to ensure your health, safety and well being at work by permitting, due negligence or carelessness, you to develop industrial dermatitis.
Evidence of your employer failing to discharge this legal duty of care might include the following:
• Failure to stop your hands (or other areas of skin) coming into contact with materials that are known to cause dermatitis.
• Failure to issue you with advice on the nature of the materials you work with and the risks of exposure to them.
• Failure to put controls in place to eliminate or limit such exposure.
• Failure to issue guidance on how to protect your skin from those materials likely to cause dermatitis.
• Failure to issue the necessary personal protective equipment (PPE) such as gloves or barrier creams.
• Failure to instruct you in how and when to use your PPE.
• Failure to substitute a safer material or substance.
• Failure to automate processes – eliminating person to substances contact.
• Failure to issue you with tools or equipment that removes the requirement for you to touch the substances.
• Failure to issue guidance on hand washing and the importance of drying your hands.
• Failure to instruct you in self-examining your hands for signs of dermatitis.
If your employer’s failure on any or all of those points can be demonstrated to have been the cause of your industrial dermatitis, and again your compensation solicitor would be able to decide from the available evidence, then it might well be possible to make a claim.
Thinking of making an Industrial Dermatitis Compensation Claim?
For help with how to claim compensation for personal injury, just email our specialist solicitors today – just complete the enquiry form below or call FREEPHONE 0800 1404544 today.
