Accidents at work are probably more common than you think. Across 2021/22, there were 565,000 non-fatal injuries suffered by workers in the UK, as per the Labour Force Survey. That resulted in six million working days lost and billions in costs for employers.

With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that there’s a huge focus from all sides of modern industry to improve workplace safety and reduce accident risk. However, even with ever-tightening regulations and increasing employer efforts, the numbers above show that accidents certainly do still happen.

But what happens if you’re the victim of a workplace accident? Here’s a quick guide to understanding your rights and the support you can get pertaining to an illness or injury suffered at work.

What constitutes an accident at work?

It’s a fair question, as knowing what a ‘workplace accident’ is and whether you’ve been the victim of one will define how you move forward with it.

A basic definition of a workplace accident is a sudden or unexpected physical or mental injury suffered while performing your job duties. That covers just about any unfortunate incident that happens to you while working, but there’s an important distinction to be made between a workplace accident and occupational injury.

Occupational injury or disease relates to ailments suffered due to long-term exposure to a workplace issue. For example, a caretaker who injures their back lifting a heavy object has suffered a workplace injury, while if they develop chronic back issues due to repeated strain over years of work, that’s an occupational injury.

Both carry similar rights, protections for the employee and potential legal consequences for the employer, but when we talk about workplace injuries, we’re talking about an illness or injury suffered due to an individual event rather than a prolonged issue.

Your rights

The important thing to note with workplace accidents is that when you enter a workplace and perform work for an employer, that employer has a duty of care to you as an employee to keep you safe to a reasonable degree.

That reasonable degree is a very high bar today. Your employer’s duty of care to you is more regulated and demanding than ever, and most businesses are diligent in sticking to their obligations. However, if an employer has failed in their duty of care to you and as a result, you’ve suffered from a workplace accident, you have the right to seek compensation for your injury.

What to do if you suffer an accident at work

Suffering from a workplace injury can carry significant physical, mental and financial ramifications for the victim, which is why seeking out compensation for an incident of this nature is so commonplace. Making a workplace injury claim can cover things like lost income from not being at work, costs of recovery and compensation for the physical and emotional distress caused.

As for how you go about that, there are three key steps to cover if you suffer a workplace accident:

Seek medical attention and notify your employer: first and foremost, you should ensure you have the right medical attention immediately to handle the injury as best as possible. By notifying your employer, you’re following the correct protocol for anything that follows after.
Gather evidence and document the accident area: if you’re going to make a claim, you’ll need the evidence to back it up. If you do engage with a claims process, this will be your main role in it – gathering any documentation, photographs and video footage available that can help prove the accident was a result of employer negligence.
Seek legal advice: it may seem daunting to start a claim against your employer, but that’s where workplace injury claim specialists come in. They will listen to your story, let you know if you have a viable claim and, if you do, take care of the entire legal process on your behalf. These processes are usually done on a no-win no fee basis, which means you only pay for their services if your claim is successful – so you won’t have to pay anything if it isn’t.

Naturally, the world of workplace injury and the legalities surrounding it is highly complex, but for you as an employer, it’s fairly simple. You have the right to be kept safe at work, and the right to make a claim in the instance that you weren’t and suffered an injury because of it. The rest is up to the support network you have around you, meaning you can focus on the most important thing: your recovery.