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A care assistant at a Leeds day care centre for Alzheimer’s and Dementia patients took the Leeds City Council to court, claiming damages for an injury suffered at the workplace due to ill-maintained equipments. The worker had to take a leave for a quarter of the year as she got various whiplash wounds. The victim also had to undergo rigorous physiotherapy.

The employee was bathing a patient in a bath seat when the incident happened. When she was raising the seat for the patient to come out of the bath, the seat got stuck on a cracked bath panel which resulted in a jerk, causing whiplash injuries to her.

After this incident, the employee contacted GMB, the union of which she is a member. The union asked Thompsons Solicitors to make a legal demand for compensation. The employer, Leeds City Council negotiated with them and made an out of court settlement of £4,000. New baths have also been installed in the day centre by the council to avoid such incidents in future.

Tim Roache of the GMB pointed out that legal pressure should not have been necessary for the council to provide secure equipment. Thompsons Solicitors’ Kevin Hughes said the injury inflicted on the worker was comparable to the kind of injury that occurs during a car accident even though the accident might appear harmless. He also said if the council had ensured that health and safety had been considered and the equipments in the day centre were secure, the incident could have been avoided.

‘Working Safely’ is for those staff who are exposed to common workplace hazards on a day to day basis and who need a basic grounding in the essentials of health and safety. The IOSH working safely programme is therefore especially suited to operatives within most organisations as it covers a broad range of common workplace hazards.