Compensation for lifting accidents in community nursing

This article examines the dangers posed to nurses in what is apparently the simplest of situations: lifting patients. The workplace context of back injury and associated musculoskeletal injury could be the hospital or the community, for example, in a patient's home. An absence of adequate devices for lifting and handling patients is apt to add to the risk of injury. The author looks at levels of financial compensation and reports some astonishing attitudes taken by employers, which should raise an alarm regarding the human and financial cost of a failure to implement a safe system of work.

The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (Health and Safety Executive (HSE), 1974) created a Commission and an Executive to make policies for, and to oversee the enforcement of, safe working conditions for employees. The Act gives power to appropriate government departments to make regulations applicable to the sectors for which they are responsible. The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (HSE, 1992) (amended 2002) are of particular relevance here. Employers have a legal duty to assess manual handling operations and are required to put in place and maintain a safe system. They must provide ‘adequate’ training. The regulations recommend that training should be given at intervals of no less than three years or whenever there is a change in work practices resulting in the introduction of a new system of work related to manual handling or use of lifting equipment. The Act consolidated and improved upon earlier legislation, which had aimed to correct some of the worst excesses of the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. Financial compensation for victims, or dependent or surviving relatives, is an altogether different part of the law.