Partner, Industrial Disease Claims
Our Industrial Disease Lawyers were approached by a man in his 30s who had been diagnosed with vibration white finger.
He had begun experiencing pins and needles in both hands and visited his GP, who referred him to hospital for further tests. He was told he may be suffering with carpal tunnel syndrome, but test results came back clear for that condition and he was discharged from treatment.
Upon returning to his job as a repair and maintenance worker at a water board, he informed his managers what had happened, but he wasn’t referred to occupational health.
Several years later, he experienced pain in his hands that led to him struggling to sleep at night. His GP referred him to the occupational health department at his employer and it was confirmed he was suffering from HAVS. At that point, he realised this was the result of his use of vibrating equipment at work.
Although he hadn’t had to take any time off work, he has been left with several ongoing symptoms, such as pins and needles and numbness. His hands can also feel painful in cold weather, and he finds many day-to-day tasks more difficult. For instance, he often drops items such as money and keys, cannot always button up shirts and finds it hard to play with and dress his young son.
He remains in employment, but his managers have now taken steps to ensure he doesn’t use vibrating equipment or that any use is kept strictly to a minimum. However, his HAVS symptoms are permanent and though they shouldn’t get worse, he will never fully recover, which could affect his future job prospects.
Our client suffered a lot of damage to his physical health as a result of the vibrating equipment he used at work. He was in a lot of pain and often had pins and needles, and difficulty sleeping.Our client still suffers from these symptoms to this day, so they are evidently long-lasting, which makes the situation even worse. He had to seek a lot of treatment to help him cope better with the symptoms of his condition, and it still hasn’t massively improved yet.
To find out more about how we can help following a Vibration White Finger diagnosis, get in touch with our industrial disease team.
He decided to claim compensation for HAVS and contacted Simpson Millar’s Industrial Disease Solicitors for help. Our Industrial Disease Lawyer felt he had a good chance of success and agreed to represent him.
We assessed his entire working history to find out when and where he may have been exposed to vibrating equipment that led to his HAVS condition. The cause of his HAVS was pinpointed to a previous job at a water company, where he would carry out regular maintenance and repair work using equipment such as jack hammers and saws for prolonged periods every workday.
He later became a technician at another water board, where he continued using vibrating equipment, albeit far less intensely than in his previous job.
We believed there were a number of failings that led to him developing HAVS. For instance:
While pursuing the case, we argued that the employers should have foreseen that his job posed a foreseeable risk of him developing a HAVS injury and ensured that a safe and proper system of work was in place. At no time was he subjected to any health surveillance or medical examination to see if he was suffering from HAVS.
The employer should also have made sure that our client had taken regular breaks and that he understood the importance of doing so. Their failure to consider the health and safety risk of prolonged forceful gripping of vibrating tools represented a breach of their statutory duty.
We also arranged for our client to undergo an independent medical assessment, which confirmed that his HAVS symptoms are permanent and he should avoid further use of vibrating tools. We approached the employers’ insurers to claim compensation for his HAVS related pain, injury and sustained financial losses.
We listened to our client’s story so we could understand the damage and long-lasting effects as a result of the vibrating equipment he used at work. We used this to guide him and help him put together a claim for compensation.
We provided our client with thorough and detailed legal advice and guidance at every turn in this case, making sure that we took into account every piece of evidence we could use for his claim, as well as finding new evidence to put forward wherever possible.
Our legal team is well-equipped with the knowledge and expertise to guide our clients in these matters. We can walk you through the whole claims process, to make sure you know what’s happening with your case at every stage, and so you know what’s coming next in your case.
In addition, we offer support throughout the process, acting as an open and transparent resource you can come to at all times with any questions, worries or concerns.
World Asthma Day is organised by the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA), a World Health Organisation who work to improve the lives of people with asthma globally. World Asthma Day is held in May each year to raise awareness of asthma worldwide. Today we discuss how common asthma is in the UK, and the surprising statistics in relation to occupational/work-related asthma.
Our client, Michael Birks, started working for world-renowned TATA Steel in Rotherham as a Temp Operative in 2010 and then took up a permanent role as a ladleman a year later. In 2013, Mr Birks began to experience symptoms in his right hand, including pins and needles – usually when he was driving long distances or gripping cutlery hard.
Our client's father, who we’ll refer to as Mr Jones, was admitted to hospital in March 2019 after describing symptoms of lethargy, weight loss and breathlessness to his local GP.
Health and Safety Executive. (n.d.). Vibration - Health risks. Retrieved from https://www.hse.gov.uk/mvr/topics/vibration.htm
Patient.info. (n.d.). Hand-arm vibration syndrome. Retrieved from https://patient.info/bones-joints-muscles/hand-arm-vibration-syndrome-leaflet
Griffin, M. J. (2017). Handbook of Human Vibration. National Center for Biotechnology Information. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5757815/
Anthony is a Partner in our Industrial Disease department and specialises in high value Industrial Disease Claims.
He joined Simpson Millar as a Paralegal in 2006, and completed his training contract three years later, working in Simpson Millar's Industrial Disease, Civil Litigation and Personal Injury departments.
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