Health and Safety is Important for Employees’ Welfare

David Cameron has recently spoken about the ‘compensation culture’ which he alleges adversely affects businesses. Mr Cameron has said that he wishes to ‘slash the red tape that is associated with health and safety’ which is the ‘albatross’ around the neck’s of businesses.

So what does Mr Cameron actually mean? Health and safety legislation is there to protect employees and lawful visitors. To eradicate laws which seek to safeguard people’s health and wellbeing and ensure that employers make their workplaces safe would be dangerous, and if those laws were to be removed business owners could get away with murder, literally.

Mr Cameron suggests that the level of risk assessment which businesses have to carry out is absurd and should be removed, but ensuring that an employee has the correct equipment to carry out their job safely or has the correct protective clothing is not something that should be removed. Why should an employee who goes to work everyday for the profit of their employer not be provided with a safe working environment and risk his life or limb?

Proper measures must be used to protect employees from accidents and ruthless employers. However, this does not take away the employee’s own responsibility for their wellbeing, and where an employer is not at fault for an accident, no compensation can be awarded. These safeguards are in place to ensure that employers do not scrimp on safety and employees remain safe at work; they are not in place to penalise business owners for no reason. The law is in place to ensure that if an employer fails to protect an employee, and that employee suffers an injury through an accident, the employee has the right of redress and can be awarded compensation for the injury to enable him to live his life.

If you have been injured in an accident at work, please contact our specialist personal injury solicitors on free phone 0808 1596 294 or email us.