Fatalities, fractured skulls, brain injuries, dislocated joints, broken bones, severe bruising, sprains, strains, cuts and grazes; it sounds like the medical aftermath of a multiple pile-up on a motorway. In fact those injuries all resulted from slips and trips in UK workplaces over the last couple of years. A ‘slip’ sounds misleadingly innocuous but the devastating injuries that slips cause most certainly are not and the fact that most can be linked to employers’ failures to address sometimes minor health and safety shortcomings is a tragedy.
The following factors can all contribute to causing a surface to present a slip hazard:
1) Environment
2) Contamination
3) Flooring
4) Footwear
5) Cleaning
6) People
Snow and ice outside and water trodden into premises by workers and visitors and even condensation can cause a slippery film to coat floors. However contamination can include far more than just water and can encompass, oil, grease, cleaning chemicals, cardboard, plastic sheeting and even bio matter. In some cases liquid contaminants might not present a slip hazard if the flooring is rough enough to provide a secure surface to walk over.
Inappropriate footwear can also increase the chances of a worker slipping. The hazards of wearing high-heeled footwear on contaminated surfaces is well known, but if there is no reasonably practicable way to prevent the contamination, the fact that the workforce isn’t issued with non-slip footwear can also be a major contributory factor in slipping accidents.
A failure to put out signage indicating that a floor area is wet and potentially dangerous as a result of cleaning, spillage or other contamination is also a major cause of accidents as the reluctance of some companies to have a ‘spot cleaning’ policy that would avoid large areas of floors having to dry after having been cleaned. Finally the most important factor of all in the causes of slips – people – has to be considered.
Have the workforce been trained in the hazards associated with contaminated floors? Have they been trained in a ‘see it, sort it’ mentality? Has the employer taken every step they reasonably can to avoid the hazards that lead to their employees slipping? If none of the above health and safety issues have been addressed, an employee injuring themselves in a slip at work might very probably be able to make a claim for compensation.
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