Employer negligence – illness in the workplace

The old adage ‘Where there’s blame, there’s a claim’ is never truer than in the case of a workplace illness or accident at work. Your job can often have you working in an environment where you are exposed to materials or situations which can lead to long term, or even grave, health problems.
The ‘Health and Safety at Work’ act and the ‘Control of Substances Hazardous to Health’ are in place to protect employees from unsafe working conditions. Occasionally, however, there are times when employees do suffer serious illness or injury as a direct result of their work. When this happens, you have the right to file a claim for compensation against the employer.

All claims against an accident at work which causes you personal injury must be made as soon as possible. Without exception it must be within 3 years of the incident, but the sooner the claim is made the higher the chances of a compensation payout.
The time frame in which a complaint can be made against a workplace illness is a little different to what you usually expect to find with similar types of claim. Due to the nature of many illnesses, they can often go undetected for many years. By this time, however, cases become notoriously more difficult to settle. Often it is required to seek expert medical advice and even contact other employees from the same establishment – which can be a lengthy process if the claim is being made many years following the period of work that is believed to have caused the illness.
Regardless of how long ago the illness is thought to have originated, it is absolutely vital a claim is made within 3 years of diagnosis. And the more time that passes without making the claim, the less likely it will be that enough evidence will be available to put together a successful case.

Insurers are often said to be unreasonably slow in determining the outcome of claims, especially considering that a large proportion of claims are being made by individuals who have serious, many fatal, conditions. An experienced workplace accident solicitor is necessary in order to maximise your chances of filing a successful compensation claim against a previous employer.