Slips, Trips & Falls Account for Sixty Five Percent of all Personal Injuries Assessment Board Claims.
The Personal Injuries Assessment Board’s Review of Public Liability Awards 2009 shows that they awarded compensation totaling €33m. 1,443 members of the public claimed they were injured in a public place.  The average award was €23,143, compared to €22,865 in 2007/2008.  The awards were broken down as follows:

• 65% of all awards were made for slips, trips and falls. 9% for being struck by a falling or flying object, 4% by machinery, 3% by burns/scalds and 1% for food poisoning
• 25% of the accidents occurred in a retail or shopping facility, 19% in hotels, pubs, nightclubs or restaurants, 8% in premises or activities under the control of state agencies (transport and utilities) and 7% in leisure facilities (sports clubs, gyms, cinemas)
• 24% of awards were made against local authorities and a further 8% involved transport and utility services
• 72% of awards were made to women
• Nearly 50% (47.5%) were made to people over 45.

This review provides a great insight into the causes of accidents and the high risk industries and locations:

• The top three types of injury suffered were strains (42%), fractures (33%) and bruising (32%). Two other types of injury suffered in significant numbers were lacerations (20%) and superficial injuries (13%). Other types of injury suffered were psychological (5%), intracranial injury (not fracture) (4%), dislocation (4%) and burns and crushing (2% each).
• The average award was €23,143. Eighty-five percent of all awards were for less than €38,000, which is the limit of the Circuit Courts’ jurisdiction. This figure is significant, as the principal aim in establishing the Injuries Board was to reduce the level of costs associated with claims.
• Just 0.5% of awards last year were for over €100,000 and 14.5% were between €38,000 and €100,000.
• Fifty-seven percent of awards were for less than €20,000 and 28% were for between €20,000 and €38,000.
  Public Liability awards account for 17% of all awards made by the Injuries Board, while employers’ liability awards account for just 11%.

Slips, Trips and Falls in the workplace, often serious and widely misunderstood, account for 1 in 5 of all notified workplace accidents. 1 in 5 of those leads to an absence of over 1 month.  Half of workers surveyed recently believed it is their employer’s responsibility (not theirs) to prevent slips and trips.

The Health & Safety Authority has developed a tool called “Get a Grip” which sets out some simple safe guards plus a checklist to assist implementation. This approach clarifies some approaches which may be new to many like identifying high risk areas for slips, trips and falls.It rechecks the focus of old approaches where poor practices have somehow become engrained (e.g. over used warning signs).It underlines the importance of tasks that may not be seen as important (e.g. Floor Cleaning). It also deals with an issue often overlooked because it’s not visible – the soles of shoes and slip resistance. It is available free to download on www.hsa.ie
http://www.hsa.ie/eng/Topics/Slips_Trips_Falls/Get_a_Grip.pdf