Lawford Kidd's Blog

A worker suffered serious injuries when he plunged nine metres through a fragile warehouse roof in Northampton.

The man was walking on fragile asbestos cement sheeting during roofing work when it gave way beneath him and he fell onto a metal pallet and then the concrete floor.

He sustained three fractures to his right arm, multiple fractures to his face and head, a punctured lung, damage to his chest and a severe gash to his right leg. He still suffers from reduced movement in his right arm and right leg, numbness in his left arm, chest problems and dizzy spells and has so far been unable to return to work.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has published updated guidance for employers on how to protect the health, safety and welfare of their workers.

The move follows a recent public consultation over the changes, which were proposed after Professor Ragnar Löfsted’s 2011 review found that the Workplace Regulations Approved Code of Practice (ACOP) was in need of updating.

Workplace Regulations ACOP

The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 cover a wide range of basic health, safety and welfare issues and are applicable to most work environments except for those involving work on construction sites, those who work in or on a ship and those who work below ground at a mine.

Workers who have sustained an injury as a result of an accident at work will find it much harder to bring a successful compensation claim after Section 69 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act came into force on the 1st October 2013.

Government’s justification

The Government describes the purpose of the Act, which received Royal Assent in April of this year, as “cutting the costs of doing business in Britain, boosting consumer and business confidence and helping the private sector to create jobs.” However, from a personal injury point of view, the effect of the Act has been to switch the burden of proof for a work related injury claim from the employer to the employee.

The Government claims that such a radical switch was necessary because businesses are currently liable to pay compensation for employee injuries, even where they have taken all reasonable steps to prevent the injury from occurring. According to the Government, this has resulted in companies over complying with health and safety regulation out of a fear of being sued, and has led to them facing unnecessary costs.

Proposed new changes to existing EU legislation, backed by the European Parliament's Public Health Committee, would trigger an automatic EU safety evaluation in the event of a safety alert about a medicinal product in any EU Member State.

These changes would ensure that the adverse effects of medicinal products will be better monitored, to prevent the recurrence of cases like the French diabetes medicine "Médiator" (benfluorex), which led to many deaths.

"Médiator" (benfluorex) was authorised to treat diabetes but was widely prescribed as an appetite suppressant. It was on the market for over thirty years, and caused between 500 and 2,000 deaths, showing the limits of the early EU pharmacovigilance system.

With effect from 6th April, employers no longer have to report to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) injuries which keep workers off normal duties for seven or fewer days. Previously, injuries had to be reported if they kept workers off normal duties for more than three days.

The change to the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR) 1995 will see a fall of around 30% in the number of incidents that must be reported by law – an average of around 30,000 fewer reports a year. The move is estimated to save businesses 10,000 hours a year.

Employers will also be given a longer period in which to report, increasing from 10 to 15 days from the time of the incident.