Your guide to an accident at work

The consequences of an accident at work can be great and very complicated. Making a injury claim can help if the injury seriously injures you or disables you, making you unable to do your job. Different injuries take different times to recover from and employers and co-workers can react badly if they are left to pick up your work if you are unable to fulfil them due to your new health problems.

They may end up being unhappy if you are slowing them down or just think your injury is an excuse to get out of work. These situations are completely unreasonable and shouldn’t happen, but sometimes do. These things happen in life and you shouldn’t be punished for it. Accidents that stop you from working can mean you lose earnings, be demoted or lose a future chance of a promotion, or worse still being fired.
But there are various laws in place to stop this from happening and the worry of making a claim against your employer should not deter you from getting the proper financial compensation you deserve.
An injury assessment and medical report will be undertaken by a medical specialist who will determine to seriousness of the accident and how much financial compensation you should receive. This type of situation could be seen by some companies and employers as a good thing as it can highlight areas of their work environment that aren’t safe and need changing to avoid further injury in the future.
Making a claim will also prove to your co-workers and employers that your injury is serious and that they should understand the reason you may need time off work or your workload reduced.
An accident at work can also compensate for other areas of your life, as a work based accident could stop you from living your life how you would normally before the accident.
When an accident first happens, there are certain procedures you should first follow to make sure you will be able to make an accident claim without hassle. The first step should be to recorded in your company’s accident work book, which is required by law if the company has over ten employees. Your entry should provide all details of what happened in the accident and if there were any witnesses, you should get them to also provide information. The quicker you make a note of what happened the better so you remember exactly what happened, you should also take photos of the area the accident happened in and any machinery that was involved.

The step after this is to go a visit your doctor, so they can assess the extent of your injury and make a medical entry detailing your injury. If the injury causes you to not be able to work, you should get confirmation from your doctor and organise sick pay with your employer.
The next stage is if you want to accident compensation claim you should contact a solicitor or one of the many no win no fee accident claim companies out there. They will advice you through the process of making your claim. These “no win no fee” companies operate in a way so that regardless of the final result of your claim, you don’t pay anything.

This article was written on behalf of Claims for you, Injury Claims and Personal injury claim specialists