The Ministry of Defence, who employ the vast majority of service personnel, is no different from any other UK employer when it comes to an employers’ legal obligations to provide a safe workplace and ensure as far as reasonably practicable the health, safety and welfare of their employees. So, if you are in the military you are as protected by the current extensive and comprehensive UK health and safety regulations as any other employee working outside of the military would be.
Another popular misconception within the military is that service personnel are not permitted to claim compensation for work related illness and disease whilst they are still serving. This is not true and it is very important to consider claiming compensation as soon as possible after you contract a disease or illness, as a result of your military service and through no fault of your own, as strict time limits usually apply – 3 years from the date of your illness for a personal injury claim and 7 years if you are claiming compensation through the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme.
Apart from rare and unusual exceptions, your employer, the Ministry of Defence, has a duty of care towards you. That is the first fact that needs to be established when considering making a claim for compensation.
After establishing that, it will need to be demonstrated that your employer was negligent in discharging that duty of care, e.g. in failing to vaccinate you against malaria before posting you to a part of the world where malaria is prevalent and where you contracted malaria or failing to issue you with instructions on how to avoid food and water-borne diseases causing you to contract a bacterial or parasitic disease.
Finally it needs to be demonstrated that your contracting of the disease that made you so ill, would have been a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the negligence of your employer. In the two examples in the last paragraph the connection between negligence and consequence is relatively clear-cut, but sometimes it is not and that is when the services of an experienced solicitor who specialised in military related illness and disease compensation claims can prove absolutely invaluable.
Call 0800 1404544 for military related illness and disease compensation claims
Our highly experienced injury claim solicitors specialise in military related illness and disease claims and can advise you on how to claim compensation.
- Dial 0800 1404544, or
- Contact us using the enquiry form.
