• Follow all safety procedures set out by your employer.
• Use any protective clothing you are given. 
• If your work involves using machinery or complex equipment, you should be given proper training and you should ask for more training if you do not feel confident yet.
• Make sure you have understood all the health and safety instructions provided before you work with anything which could be dangerous.
• Avoid mucking about or practical jokes which could go wrong or cause an accident, as this behaviour could result in you facing disciplinary action or even dismissal!
• If you are concerned about your safety or the safety of others at work, then raise any issues with your manager. If you are treated badly or sacked for raising your concerns, then you can bring a claim in the Employment Tribunal, and you may be able to also apply for interim relief.

• Report it to your manager or designated safety representative.
• Make sure they record the incident in writing. Most workplaces will use an accident book for this. All workplaces with ten or more employees must have one of these books. If your workplace has less than ten employees, it should still have a means of formally recording incidents in writing, as this is recommended as good practice.
• If you feel the injury is serious, you should seek medical attention such as contacting your doctor, or in serious cases going to A&E at a hospital, and explain how your work caused your injury. The doctor may advise that you need treatment and possibly time off work to recover. You can now claim Statutory Sick Pay from the first full day you are off work sick. (You may be entitled to more generous sick pay under your contract). 

"I started getting really itchy red patches in between my fingers. My doctor said it was a skin condition called dermatitis and I probably got it from the cleaning products I was using at work." 
Jasmine, London

• If you are unable to work for several weeks, you might be entitled to claim Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) or Universal Credit. If the injury is serious, you may be entitled to Industrial Injury Benefit. You should speak to an experienced benefits adviser if you are in this position. See How to find an adviser to help with your benefits.
• If you are considering making a claim for compensation against your employer for personal injury after an accident at work that was wholly, or partly their fault, it is particularly important to make sure the accident is recorded in an accident book or other formal written record. 
• If possible, you or a colleague, should take photos of the hazard, (ideally as soon as possible after the incident), and keep details of any witnesses. You have three years to bring a claim, but you should get it investigated promptly. See Should I sue someone? (You can only take a claim about being injured at work to the Employment Tribunal if the injury is linked to an employment complaint such as discrimination, harassment, or if you were dismissed for being injured).   

If you feel that your health is suffering at work, speak to your manager about it. You might be able to resolve the problem easily. If you have a safety representative at work, you could speak to them too.

If your employer does not sort out the problem, you should seek advice from someone with experience in this area about how to take the matter further. This could be the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) or an adviser at your local advice centre.

You may be able to claim compensation from your employer, if your work has made you ill, or if you lost your job as a result of work-related health problems.

Your employer is not allowed to sack you for raising a health and safety concern or telling the Health and Safety Executive about it.

Special protection for under 18's, pregnant women and new mums

Employers have to be extra-careful about risks to under 18s and make sure there are proper risk assessments in place. Young people are likely to be new to the workplace and so are at more risk of injury during the first six months of a job, as they may be less aware of workplace hazards and be unsure how to raise concerns. 

Employers must, by law, assess the risks to women of childbearing age as part of their general workplace risk assessment. Employers must also carry out an individual risk assessment, that covers the worker’s specific needs, when they have been informed in writing that the worker: 

• is pregnant, 
• is breastfeeding, or
• has given birth in the last 6 months. 

Where there are risks, the employer should take reasonable steps to remove them. For example, offering the employee different work or changing their hours. The employer should suspend the employee on full pay if they cannot remove any risks, for example, offering suitable alternative work. 

Can my employer charge me for safety boots? 

No, if they are required for the job, the employer must provide them for free.

Do I have to pay for my own PPE at work?

No, if it is not safe to do the job without it, the employer must provide and pay for it.

Do I need to be an 'employee' to have health and safety rights?

'Employees' and 'Workers' are protected (this includes people on zero-hour contracts, and agency workers). In some cases, self-employed people must also take reasonable steps to protect their health and safety, and that of others affected by their work. For more information see How to work out if you are an employee, a worker or self-employed.

What is a 'reasonably practicable' safety measure? 

Employers, and some self-employed people, have a duty to do what is ‘reasonably practicable’ to ensure your health and safety. This means balancing the level of risk against the measures needed to control it in terms of money, time and effort.

What is 'reasonable' will depend on how dangerous the hazard is, how likely the risk is to occur, and how expensive, difficult, or time consuming the safety measure would be to implement. Every single risk does not need to be eliminated, but risks should be reduced to the lowest level that is sensible. 

What if I’m treated badly at work after complaining?

If you are treated badly (or dismissed) after raising a health and safety issue, you should:

1. Get advice if possible.
2. Raise it with your employer, either informally or using the grievance procedure.
3. Consider taking the issue to Employment Tribunal.

It is unlawful to treat you badly (what the law calls ‘detriment’) for using one of your statutory rights like raising a health and safety concern. Being treated badly includes things like being passed over for promotion or training, giving you harder or more boring work, making degrading or humiliating comments about you, or ending your employment.

If you are an employee and are sacked for raising a health and safety issue, you could make a claim to the Employment Tribunal for unfair dismissal even if you have only just started the job.  This is because being dismissed for raising a health and safety issue is classed as 'automatically unfair dismissal'. Employees are protected from automatically unfair dismissal from the first day they begin their employment.

In some cases, an employee in this situation can apply for 'interim relief' alongside their main employment tribunal claim. Important - an application for interim relief must be made within 7 days of the day you stopped being employed. What lawyers call the ‘effective date of termination’.

If you have the legal status of worker and have been dismissed, you cannot make a claim for unfair dismissal. But you might be able to make a claim for ‘detriment’ as explained above.  

The law is complicated. We recommend you try to get advice from the sources we have suggested if at all possible.

This guide was written by Advicenow. Advicenow would like to thank all those who provided advice and feedback on this guide including Amy Stroud from 42BR Barristers,  Katherine King and Marina Tori from Central England Law Centre.

This guide was updated thanks to funding from the Ministry of Justice under the Online Support and Advice Grant.