H&S Exploited by Ambulance Chasers
Whilst every employer understands the importance of Health & Safety legislation, many small office-based businesses find themselves burdened by H&S bureaucracy that has little or no effect upon risk reduction. Ironically, one of the greatest risks such a business carries is not that injury or work-related ill-health will occur but that an opportunistic claim, fuelled by excitable personal injury lawyers, will be fought outside the courtroom and therefore never put to the true test of law.
Lord Young, who has been tasked by the Government to review the UK’s H&S laws, has condemned specialist legal firms that incite employees (and visitors) to bring claims that would never stack up in court but that are settled out of court – for the sake of expedience – by frustrated employers. These same employers (in non-hazardous environments) are spending, on average, 1 day each month on unnecessary H&S paperwork. Paperwork – whilst having, of course, a role to play in H&S management – is not the great risk panacea that employers imagine, and the more that is distributed, the less employees will engage with Health & Safety.
Lord Young proposes a shake-up of H&S legislation that will enable businesses to get back to work and not be bogged down by unhelpful bureaucracy. In the meantime, we recommend you stand up to threatening letters from ambulance chasers. If your policies are clear, your practices consistent and reasonable, and if you have followed fundamental H&S precautions, your litigant and their lawyer won’t want to face you in court.
