Today, in the United Kingdom, five workers in the construction sector will fall from height, mostly from scaffolding, some from ladders and others from a variety of high places. They will all usually be injured. Some horribly, in life changing ways; some less severely and some will never go home to their families again. That same number will fall again tomorrow and the day after that and as they have been doing since accident reports started being kept by the Health and Safety Executive.
Five accidents a day, every day of the year, is obviously a statistical average, but at the end of each year, the total number of employees suffering fatal and non-fatal injuries as a result of scaffolding accidents remains both persistently high and stubbornly resistant to decreasing. You might think that the majority of these accidents are caused by employee negligence and carelessness – they are not. You might consider that the regulations pertaining to health and safety in the workplace require a drastic overhaul. In fact workplace, work process and employee related health and safety regulations have improved immeasurably over the last thirty years and have never been more comprehensive or comprehended by employers.
When the effect of scaffolding accidents is sufficiently injurious to a company’s ability to achieve their planned profit, we might see a decline in the number of scaffolding injuries. At the moment is there is no shortage of labour and no shortage of people willing take casual employment, undertaking potentially hazardous, inadequately risk controlled work processes, that demand a level of expertise and health and safety awareness they do not possess and which are unlikely to be adequately provided by their cost focused employers.
And so the number of avoidable scaffolding injuries continues its inexorably rise. The victims are sometime so badly injured that they will never work again and some die of their injuries. Some of those or their families make a claim for compensation and the employers defending the claims might see their employers liability insurance premiums edge up slightly. Some workers who are less severely injured and able to recover and return to work but who are still indignant at having been injured through no fault of their own, also make a claim for work injury compensation. Many however, do not, because even though it is their right to do so, they are fearful that making such a claim for compensation might have an adverse effect on their securing employment within the industry in the future.
Thinking about a Scaffolding Injury Compensation Claim? Call us now
Working with scaffolding is very dangerous, so if your employer fails to protect you leading to you being injured, you could be entitled to claim compensation.
- Call our compensation claims solicitors now on 0800 1404544, or
- Complete the enquiry form below.
