How to avoid chemical injury at work

The avoidance of chemical injury at work hinges on the assessing and management of the hazard, something which will occur as a matter of course as long as employers carry out their legal obligations under the relevant health and safety legislation and fully discharge their common law duty of care to keep their employees from coming to harm in the course of their employment. That sounds very straight forward and you might be forgiven for wondering why, when some of the chemicals involved in some industrial processes are so toxic and their potential effects on workers so pernicious, that some employers don’t comply with health and safety law or discharge their duty of care to their employees.

Strangely enough and almost counter intuitively, personal protective equipment (PPE) is the last resort when it comes to avoiding chemical injuries at work. In order of desirability the employer should take the following steps before relying on PPE to protect their workers:

1) Eliminate the hazard – stop using the toxic chemical. If that isn’t achievable…

2) Substitute the hazardous chemical for a chemical that isn’t as toxic. If neither elimination nor substitution is possible…

3) Isolate the hazardous chemical so that it can’t come into contact with workers. If elimination, substitution and isolation are not practical solutions…

4) Engineer a reduction in the hazard level, using tools or equipment, for instance by installing a vapour/gas extraction system. If none of the above are possible…

5) Change working processes and procedures to avoid employees coming into contact with the hazardous chemicals.

If none of the above provides a solution, then the workers should be equipped with and trained to use appropriate and effective PPE.

In addition to the above, the other crucial steps required by health and safety legislation to avoid chemical (and other types of) injuries include the preparation and acting on of all the necessary risk assessments, health and safety training, monitoring of chemical exposure of workers, controlling the release of hazardous fumes and chemicals, scheduled testing of engineering controls (see above) and the effective and timely acting on of complaints or reports of problems from the workforce.

The bottom line always remains that the employer legally has to take any reasonably practicable steps to protect their workers from coming to harm. Failure so to do will provide employees injured as a result of their employers negligence, with valid grounds for applying for a chemical injury compensation claim.

Want to claim compensation for chemical injuries at work?

If you have suffered any injury from dangerous chemicals in your workplace which was not your fault, you may be able to claim compensation. Our specialist compensation solicitors can help – email us today with your question about how to claim injury compensation.