Health and safety

It is perhaps as well that our education colleagues are not as promptly litigious as some other public services. One, a uniformed service, has found itself paying out for:

• a fall from a platform which was only fenced on three sides

• a fractured finger sustained because the height-adjustment on an office chair was broken walking on a designated route in a school and colliding with an open classroom window while momentarily distracted

• injury to a back while opening a gate (which was not working properly) at a royal palace a fall from a pile of milk crates placed to aid access to a car park

• intense manual handling (without training)

The legislation concerned was: The Working at Height Regulations 2005, Work Equipment Regulations 1998, the Manual Handling Regulations 1992 (Sections 4 and 5), and the Workplace Regulations 1992.

All of these also apply to schools and colleges. It is worth adding to that list the Workplace (Health Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, because they apply to the most common injury at work: slipping and tripping.