Accident at work
Your legal rights after being injured at work
In light of World Day for Health and Safety at Work, our legal experts explore research surrounding time off after workplace accidents and how concerns about money and job security can impact this.
After an injury or an accident has occurred at work, depending on the severity, you would assume most people will take time off to recover. However, in research we conducted, we found that more than a third of people who worked physical construction jobs said they could not afford to take time off after an injury at work.
With the cost of living crisis at the forefront of many people’s minds, we found 57% of UK households reporting that their cost of living had increased when compared with the previous month, it is understandable why people feel that they cannot afford to take time away from work to recover after an injury.
Self-employment and injuries at work
Our research also found that nearly 50% of people who worked physical construction jobs said they lost income due to an injury at work. Construction as an industry hosts a significant number of self-employed workers, and in 2024, it had the most self-employed workers with around 745,000 registered as self-employed.
Being self-employed and suffering an injury while working can lead to a loss of income, as self-employed people do not have the same rights to statutory sick pay as employed people do. Statutory sick pay is a minimum amount paid by employers to employees who are sick and meet certain eligibility criteria. Since self-employed individuals are not employees, they cannot claim this.
An alternative to statutory sick pay for those who are self-employed is the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), which is a benefit designed to help people with living costs while they are unable to work due to health reasons.
Can taking time off from work after an injury effect your employment?
In our research, we found more than 25% said they did not make a claim because they did not want to lose their job. Taking time off after an injury at work is important to aid with recovery and not taking them to allow the body to heal can lead to other health issues. For example, repetitive strain injury, which our research revealed 21% of construction workers have experienced.
If you take time off to recover after having an accident at work, your employer cannot legally terminate your employment. Fair dismissal from work must fall under the five reasons as set out in Section 98 of the Employment Rights Act 1998. These include:
- Not having the capability or qualifications to do the job you were employed to do.
- Gross misconduct
- Your job is being made redundant
- Another law conflicts the terms of your employment
- Other “substantial reasons” that your employer would need to be able to prove to an employment tribunal was justified. If you are dismissed from your position and the reason does not fall under one of the reasons above, you may have a case for unfair dismissal.
Could making a claim against an employer lead to unemployment?
As stated before, a lawful reason for dismissal must fall under the five reasons set out by Section 98 of the Employment Rights Act 1998. A legal claim against your employer is not included in the legal reasons to dismiss an employee.
Our research revealed that, for various reasons, nearly 70% of those injured in physical construction jobs did not make a claim. You could be eligible to make a claim against your employer if your workplace injury occurred through no fault of your own. This could have been due to another employee, faulty equipment, unsafe practises or incorrect protective equipment. Employers have a legal duty of care to ensure their employees have a safe working environment and equipment, proper training, and protection. If they breach that duty and you are injured as a result, you are entitled to make a claim against them.
Slater and Gordon have a specialist team of personal injury lawyers who deal with accident at work claims on a no win no fee basis. For more information on what steps to take next, call us on 0330 041 5869 or contact us online.