Personal injury advice from
Thompsons Solicitors
Police Employee Compensated for Needlestick Injury at Work
31st January 2011
We recently assisted a police employee in making a compensation claim for a needlestick injury he sustained in an accident at work.
Injury at Work
Our client was a scenes of crime officer and, at the time of his personal injury, he was taking fingerprints to help identify a body. Obtaining usable fingerprints from the deceased can be difficult, so in order to achieve this he used a technique taught to him by a senior colleague, which involved injecting liquid into the finger to plump out the skin.
The deceased was suspected to be Hepatitis C positive, so our client wore two pairs of gloves in accordance with the instructions in his training. During the procedure however, the needle punctured his own thumb. His puncture wound was encouraged to bleed to lower the risk of infection and it was washed out. Our client then had to undergo a series of tests for any signs of infection over the following 12 months.
He suffered depression and anxiety due to the possibility of contracting an infection and required a lot of time off work and counselling to help him recover.
Unsafe Working Procedure
Our specialist personal injury lawyers have a wealth of experience in workplace accident cases, so the claimant appointed us to act on his behalf. We began a personal injury claim against his employer, as they failed to take adequate health and safety precautions to protect their employee.
No specific risk assessment had been carried out for the task and the personal protective equipment our client was instructed to use was not sufficient to prevent the injury, whereas anti-penetration gloves may have helped.
Following the accident, our client’s employer banned the procedure on the basis that it was not sufficiently safe. It was also found that the procedure had already been discontinued by other services.
The Judge found in favour of the claimant and he was awarded in excess of £3,000 in damages. He did not find any fault with our client, as he carried out his work in exactly the way he had been trained to.
Expert Legal Advice
If you suffer a needlestick injury, or any other accident caused by the negligence of someone else, you may be entitled to make an injury claim.
Contact The Legal Line on 0800 0328511, or by completing a claim enquiry form online, for expert accident claim advice on a cost-free, confidential basis.
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