Kitchen worker receives compensation
A kitchen worker who fractured her skull has received more than £36,000 in compensation after being injured in a 'preventable' work accident.
The employee who reportedly cannot work again was in a restaurant kitchen, when the accident took place.
The worker slipped and hit her head on the hard tiled floor. She was rushed to hospital where she drifted in and out of consciousness, suffered seizures and spent a lengthy period in the hospital's high dependency unit.
On hearing a prosecution case against a retailer arising from slip accident in a store restaurant, the District Judge said: "This was a very serious accident, one which was wholly preventable."
The judge added: "Every employer has a duty under law to protect its employees from physical harm - something that [the company] blatantly failed to do. There had been four similar accidents in their kitchen during the previous 12 months, yet they still failed to act."
When a Local Authority Health and Safety inspector visited the restaurant to look into the factors that caused the serious injury sustained by a member of staff, he quickly became concerned that the floor surface in the kitchen was very slippery with even the smallest amounts of water or grease on it.
Slippery when dry
The inspector found that the tiled floor appeared to be in good condition, yet it still felt slippery even when the tiles looked to be clean and dry.
When just small amounts of water got onto the floor it was found to be very slippery.
To add to this, some areas of the kitchen floor sloped, which caused an increased risk of slipping, while in the kitchen. Staff at the kitchen had to walk extremely carefully, to try and avoid slipping.
Floor "safety" mats had been put down in some parts of the kitchen, such as in the dish wash area, but these were slippery to walk on too, especially when wet.
Cleaning staff had removed these mats at the time of the worker's accident, leaving her to walk on the slippery tiled floor that quickly became contaminated with food waste, water and oily residues.
The company's safety records examined by the inspector showed that there had been other work accidents, involving slips and falls in the area, but the response had been to provide the most heavily contaminated areas, such as the dish washer, and matting - which was itself slippery, especially when wet.
Unacceptably risk of slips
Scientists from the Health and Safety Laboratory examined the tiled floor surface and the matting, after which they confirmed that the inspector was right to conclude that the risk of slipping was 'unacceptably high' because of the lack of slip resistance of the tiles and the matting. The floor surface was clearly not fit for the purpose.
The company was also aware of numerous other accidents in similar situations at their other sites around the country. The inspector served an Improvement Notice on the company to require them to deal with the slip risks to employees.
A number of other options were considered by the company, but these were said to be 'inadequate or inappropriate'.
They eventually replaced the floor surface with one that was suitable for use in an area where the total elimination of floor contaminants would never be possible.
The new floor was specified to provide enough grip when walking, even in wet or contaminated conditions, so that the risk of further work accidents was greatly reduced.
Updated on 9/5/2009