Personal injury claims are a hot-topic at present, with the laws on no win no fee arrangement being changed after the reforms recommended by Lord Justice Jackson, and calls for road accident personal injury claims to be reduced as they greatly affect the price of car insurance. But personal injury claims after an accident in the workplace can be devastating for companies of all sizes – not only are they costly, but they affect your insurance premium, reflect in your reputation and waste your time especially where it was an accident that should have been avoided.
You often hear people saying, “health and safety gone mad” in reference to the large amount of bureaucracy and paperwork associated with policies, but it is this paperwork that could make the difference not only between someone being hurt, but between a claim against you being successful or not.
Robust health and safety processes help you to cover your back and ensure that all hazards and potential risks within a company have been considered and protected against where possible. Many companies like to go down the route of obtaining a business certification such as OHSAS 18001 in order to demonstrate to clients, partners and employees that health and safety is of utmost importance. These certifications require the business to conduct hazard awareness assessments and establish safety control procedures to minimise accidents where ever possible. Employee training must also be regularly undertaken and reviews of the processes in place must also be conducted.
Certifications such as OHSAS 18001 are also more beneficial as they can simplify the processes you have in place – avoiding complicated procedures and making it easier for your employees to be trained up.
In studies, businesses that have either been assessed for health and safety policies or who have conducted their own in-depth reviews have been seen to have fewer accidents and as a result, fewer personal injury claims. If the worst occurs and someone is hurt, you can easily demonstrate that your organisation has made every effort to avoid accidents, and that after being trained, employees are responsible for ensuring that health and safety policies have been adhered to.
For more information about health and safety requirements that need to be met by business, head to the Direct Gov website.
My new site accidentbook.org creates a logical workflow from accident recording to incident reporting to HSE all on one site. At a price EVERY business can afford.