Slipping, tripping and level surface falls are by far the most common causes of accidents in schools in the UK today. Nearly two thousand such accidents occurred in our schools last year alone. Fortunately they are the easiest to prevent. There isn’t a school in the land that hasn’t got a robust health and safety regime and which doesn’t strive tirelessly to go above beyond its legal duties to ensure that the environment is a safe one for both the employees and pupils, but high work pressure and a long term underinvestment in the maintenance of the fabric of public sector schools has resulted in far too many schools fighting to keep their heads above water when it comes to preventing slips, trips and falls.
To avoid such accidents, the risk management of interior floors and exterior surfaced areas is essential. Potholes, cracked or crumbling concrete, frayed carpeting, uneven surfaces, excessive dust on smooth flooring and failure to adopt a spot cleaning approach to quickly removing contaminants from floors all need to be addressed, almost regardless of the financial cost. When retrenchment starts to affect employees’ wellbeing and puts them at risk of suffering sometimes life-changing injuries, priorities need to be revisited.
Another category of accident in schools that compete with slips, trips and falls to be the leading cause of work related injuries is manual handling. Many hundreds of school employees, a truly unacceptable number, are injured by the simple act of lifting or carrying a load at work each year. The space they are attempting to lift in might be cramped, the load might be bulky or unduly heavy, and the lifting might be altogether too repetitive or require too much physical effort. The extent of the musculoskeletal injuries that are suffered can be as varied as the circumstances that lead to the accidents to occur. The reason they occur is usually always the same; manual handling training that is in some respect inadequate or employer’s asking employees to undertake high risk lifting or carrying tasks that could be avoided by the availability of simple technology such as sack or other type of trolley.
The third most common type of accident for a school employee to have, according to the Health and Safety Executive’s statistics is being struck by a moving, falling or flying object. Evidence would suggest that many of these objects are dislodged fragments from school buildings which are crumbling for want of maintenance. Again, lack of money to ensure that the school buildings themselves don’t injury employees will not be a valid defence in compensation claims brought by employees thus injured through no fault of their own.
Making an accident claim for an injury at school
If you have suffered an injury whilst at school that was not your fault, you could be entitled to make a compensation claim.
For FREE advice on how to claim accident compensation, call our specialist compensation solicitors on FREEPHONE 0800 1404544 or email our team at salisbury@bishopslaw.com
