Starting off in a new job can be both an exciting and nerve-wracking experience. The pressure to learn the ropes fast and to not make mistakes is great. You are likely keen to make a good first impression. The last thing you would want is to be injured in an accident in your new workplace. If you do get hurt in a workplace accident you may not be sure what to do next. This article aims to discuss what could happen if you have an accident at work as a new employee.
I had an accident at work as a new employee could I claim compensation guide
You may be wondering if you had an accident at work as a new employee would you have the same rights as an employee who has worked there much longer? Hopefully, this guide will answer all of your questions and show whether or not you could be entitled to make a compensation claim if you have had an injury in an accident that was not your fault. Also, this guide is also going to explain to you how to do that, how much compensation you could be awarded and how No Win No Fee solicitors could help.
Once you have read through this page, if there is anything you want to know about making a compensation claim, or if you would like to make an enquiry, you can get in touch using any of the following contact methods.
- Calling 0161 696 9685 to reach our team and receive free legal advice.
- Requesting a call back by filling in the form on this page
- Sending a message through our live chat at the bottom of this page.
Select A Section
- A Guide To Claims For Injuries To New Employees At Work
- Calculate Compensation For Injuries To New Employees
- Types Of Damages Awarded For Work-Related Injuries
- What Are Injuries To New Employees?
- What To Do If You Have Been Injured As A New Employee
- Workplace Safety Statistics
- What Are Your Rights As A New Employee?
- Employee Rights As A New Starter
- What Are My Employee Statutory Rights?
- Longer-Term Employment Rights
- How Do I Claim For My Injuries As A New Employee?
- No Win No Fee Claims For Injuries To New Employees
- Talk To An Expert
- More Information On Workplace Safety
A Guide To Claims For Injuries To New Employees At Work
You may be feeling worried about what to do next if you have recently suffered an injury in an accident at work as a new employee. You may be concerned that, as someone who has only recently started, you would not be entitled to make a personal injury claim. We want to dispel this right away. If you are injured in your place of work and you can prove that it was because your employer was negligent you could claim compensation for any harm suffered. This is because under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 you are fully entitled to all of the reasonable protection that your employer can provide. This is unconditional on your status within your new workplace or how long you have been there.
This guide will encompass other information on your workplace safety rights and your rights to claim compensation. In addition, we will explain what different employment rights come into effect when you are working in an organisation, what circumstances you might face injuries in that could be grounds for making a compensation claim and what some of the details of making a claim entail. This includes looking at what different types of compensation you could be entitled to claim and how these will be calculated.
Calculate Compensation For Injuries To New Employees
There are various different types of compensation that could be awarded to you if you were to make a compensation claim for injuries sustained in a workplace accident. We will address the different types of special damages compensation you could be entitled to in the next section. However, first, we will take a look at how the damages for the injury itself will be worked out.
Calculating the damages you could be entitled to for your injury means looking at the effects of the injury. Also, assessing how severe they are. This is measured on a number of different metrics. These include the amount of pain you have had to experience, the length of time you have spent recovering and the kind of treatment you have had to undergo. Also whether or not you will have any lasting effects from the injury such as scars, residual pain, or disability, and how severe these effects are.
It won’t be possible to give you a valuation of the compensation you could be entitled to on this page. However, you could benefit from reading the compensation table below. It shows rough estimates of the amount of money you could be awarded for different types of injuries. If you would like more details of the amounts of money you could receive, call our advice team.
Injury | Compensation |
---|---|
Crushed hand | £96,160 to £109,650 |
Amputation of foot | £83,960 to £109,650 |
Severe burns | Likely to exceed £104,830 |
Less facial scars | £17,960 to £48,420 |
Broken jaw | £30,490 to £45,540 |
Facial fractures | £23,810 to £36,740 |
Broken clavical | £5,150 to £12,240 |
Types Of Damages Awarded For Work-Related Injuries
There is more than one type of compensation that could be claimed as part of your injury claim. There are general damages and special damages. Below is a breakdown of what these types of damages involve and how they are calculated.
General Damages
General Damages refers to the compensation that you could have awarded for the injury itself. It reflects the degree of harm and suffering that you have experienced as a result of the injury. We have detailed the way in which it would be calculated in the section above.
Special damages
In Addition to making a claim for damages for the injury itself, you could also be entitled to make a claim for special damages as well. Special damages are the restitution you could get for the financial losses due to your injury. Below is a list of the different types of financial losses that you could experience following an injury for which you could be compensated.
Medical Expenses
Treatment for your injuries may necessitate spending money on medical treatment. This could include money spent on private option healthcare, prescriptions or physical rehabilitation therapy. Keep all of the invoices. Also, other paperwork associated with the costs of your medical treatment in order to be eligible to claim back these losses.
Travel Costs
Having an injury could incur financial costs of transport. These could result from having to travel back and forth to appointments in your treatment. It could also result from having to use public transport instead of driving due to the loss of your ability to drive as a result of an injury. You should keep track of all the receipts relating to the use of public transport in order to be eligible to make a compensation claim for your transport costs.
Loss of income
An injury could cause you to lose income by being unable to work. This could range from a few weeks of sick leave from work while you recover, to having to take on new, less well-paid work, to being permanently disabled. You could lose out on income that you would otherwise have earned if the injury had not occurred, including bonuses for performance or attendance. You could be entitled to claim back an equivalent amount of the money you have lost if you are able to provide a copy of a wage slip and other paperwork as supporting evidence of your lost income.
What Are Injuries To New Employees?
In any workplace, there could be a potential risk of being injured. Some workplaces, these dangers might be self-evident, such as workplaces where there is moving machinery, dangerous materials or in industries such as construction or fishing. However, in other workplaces, the risk of injury might be less severe or less obvious, such as offices or bars and restaurants, but still present.
A person who has only recently started working in a place of employment may not be concerned about an accident at work as a new employee. It may not even have entered their head. However, it always helps to be mindful when starting in a new place of work. There are a number of reasons why;
- Lack of familiarity and experience leading to mistakes
- Poor familiarity and experience with some of the hazards in the workplace
- No training in the methods for performing a task safely
- A lack of supervision and assistance with performing a new job for the first time.
These are some of the ways in which you might be injured in an accident at work as a new employee. This could include:
- Being supplied with defective or insufficient Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
- Working with defective equipment
- Being injured by moving vehicles
- Being injured in a slip, trip or fall
If the accident and injury have occurred because your employer did not meet their obligations towards health and safety, you could be entitled to make a compensation claim for any injuries suffered.
What To Do If You Have Been Injured As A New Employee
It is always best to seek legal advice and discuss your potential options with an expert as soon as possible in situations where you have suffered an accident at work. There is a three-year time limit to making a compensation claim that starts from either the date of the accident or the date of knowledge. It can be much easier to remember what happened straight after the accident than it can 2 years down the line. Also, evidence will be easier to collect.
In the immediate aftermath of an accident, however, your first priority should be to seek medical attention. Once you have been checked out report the incident to your manager. importantly, ensure that it is logged in the accident book. You should also do what you can to gather evidence of your own. This can include taking photographs of the scene and the cause of the accident. Additionally, see whether or not any of the witnesses to the accident would be willing to provide statements in support of you. This could be of great help when it comes to making a claim.
Workplace Safety Statistics
In 2019/2020 there were 65,427 injuries in workplace accidents reported to RIDDOR. Whilst the Labour Workforce Survey showing that the figure was even higher at 693,000. The number of deaths in workplace accidents in that year was 111. 38.8 million days were lost to the time taken off work due to workplace injuries or illness.
1.6 million people working in the UK suffer from workplace illnesses. In 2019/20 2,446 deaths were recorded due to asbestos exposure. The figures of workplace deaths and injuries have followed a general pattern of decline for over 40 years now thanks to the progressive introduction of health and safety legislation. Also a decline in the proportion of the workforce who work in dangerous and physically demanding jobs. However, these figures do not give an indication about how many of these injuries or illness could have been prevented. Therefore, we cannot make assumptions about whether or not these accidents were caused by negligence. If you would like to read more about these statistics in more detail, you can visit the Health and Safety Executive website.
What Are Your Rights As A New Employee?
There are some rights that employees only become entitled to after they have been working for an employer for a certain amount of time. Other rights, however, are enshrined under law from the first day on which the employee begins working for an employer. Some of these rights are listed below.
- The rights to be paid no less than the minimum wage
- The right to not discriminated against in any fashion on the grounds of race, gender, sexuality, age, religion, gender identity or disability
- The right to refuse to work in an environment which you believe to be unsafe
- The rights to protection of your health and safety
- The right to join a trade union and to have a trade union representative accompany you to a disciplinary hearing
Employee Rights As A New Starter
It is important that you know if your new job role means you are a ”worker” or an employee. These two roles may be entitled to different rights. If you are a new employee you will have similar rights to an employee who has been at the workplace for some time. If you are on probation or have worked there for less than 2 years you may have slightly different rights. For example, you can usually only make a claim for unfair dismissal if you have worked there for 2 years or more.
What Are My Employee Statutory Rights?
By law, you are given a set of rights. This includes;
- Maternity or paternity leave
- Paid holidays
- National minimum wage
- Receive a copy of your contract of employment
- Receive a copy of your wage slip, with no deductions apart from tax and any deductions expressly stipulated in your contract
- Paid compensation for being made redundant
- Not being unfairly dismissed
Longer-Term Employment Rights
Other rights only come into effect once you have been employed for a period of several months.
- The right to request flexible working hours comes into effect after twenty-six weeks
- The right to paternity leave and shared parental leave comes into effect after 26 weeks
Other rights only come into effect after you have been an employee for at least two years or more.
- The right to appeal an unfair dismissal in an employment tribunal
- Right to receive a written notice of explanation for your dismissal or redundancy
- The right to be given statutory redundancy pay
How Do I Claim For My Injuries As A New Employee?
If you have been injured in a workplace accident that wasn’t your fault while working as a new employee, you could be entitled to claim compensation for your injuries. The first step towards doing this could be to contact our team for free legal advice and speak to one of our friendly professional advisors. If they believe that your situation could be grounds for making a successful compensation claim, then they will offer to hand you over a solicitor on our panel. From there you can discuss the terms and conditions of making a claim. Also, how the case for your workplace injury claim will be put together.
No Win No Fee Claims For Injuries To New Employees
You might have concerns about how much money it would cost you to hire a solicitor. Therefore, we would like to assure you that you don’t have to worry so much about how to pay for a solicitor if you opt for one that works on a No Win No Fee basis. Importantly, a No Win No Fee solicitor, will not ask for up front fees. Instead, you will only be asked to provide your solicitor with a portion of your compensation as payment if you win the claim. Furthermore, in an unsuccessful claim, you will not have to pay your solicitor a penny.
Talk To An Expert
Finally, you have reached the end of the guide. Thank you for reading our guide about an accident at work as new employee. If you would like to talk to a legal expert and receive a free no-obligation consultation on whether or not you could be entitled to make a workplace injury claim, or if you would like to enquire about working with a solicitor from our panel on making a claim, then you can do any of the following.
- Call 0161 696 9685
- Filling in this contact page
- Sending a message through our live chat
More Information On Workplace Safety
Below, you can find links to lots more guides on accidents at work:
- Accidents at work FAQ
- How to make an accident at work claim
- Agency worker accident claims
- How to make a claim if injured as a temporary worker
- I hurt myself at work, can I make a claim?
- Can you sue your employer for an accident while still employed?
- How to prove an injury at work
- Will claiming against my employer create problems?
- Advice on claims if injured working for cash
- Do I need accident at work solicitors near me?
- Employers’ responsibilities after an accident at work
- What happens if an employee does not report an accident or injury at work?
- How long after an accident at work do you have to claim?
- Do I need a lawyer if I get an injury at work?
- I had an accident at work, what are my employers’ responsibilities?
- I didn’t take time off work after an accident, can I still claim?
- Who pays my work injury medical expenses?
- How to claim for a work accident
- What to do if I injured myself at work?
- Workplace accident claim time limits
- Accidents caused by tiredness and fatigue
- Can you be fired for a work-related accident?
- Foot injuries caused by a lack of safety books
- Could I make a workplace injury claim if I’m not an employee?
- Tendon injury at work claims
- Can you claim for an accident at work if you suffered no injury?
- How to claim for an injury at work when self-employed
- Can I claim if assaulted at work?
- Can I be sacked for having an accident at work?
Page by KT
Published by AL.