Slips, trips and falls Injury claims

Slips, trips and falls generally happen because businesses, building landlords or local councils didn't take the correct maintenance, repair and safety measures to keep you and other members of the public safe. Most slips and trips when people are out and about are caused by:

• Wet floors plus wet or icy pavements
• Uneven flooring or steps
• Cracked or uneven pavements and kerbs
• Unexpected obstacles
• Poor lighting

Businesses such as shops, supermarkets, pubs and restaurants also have a responsibility to keep you safe from slips and trips when you're on their premises. This means they must do things like signpost wet floors clearly, keep walkways or aisles clear, clean up spillages as quickly as possible, ensure adequate lighting and keep railings, steps and ramps safe.

If it was someone else's fault and you sustained an injury as a result, then you can usually make a claim for compensation.

Slips and trips happen can all the time: this can mean that you claim for falling down stairs at work or tripping in the street, on public transport, in buildings, shops and restaurants.

Injuries can range from minor abrasions and soft tissue damage to chronic back problems, serious head trauma and worse.

It all depends on where the accident happened. If you fell in a building with public access - say a library, car park or swimming pool - then responsibility would lie with the building's owners. If in a shop, restaurant or similar then liability would be down to the business owner. On the street - say you stumble and hurt yourself because of a damaged pavement, a broken kerb or a faulty staircase - then the accountable party will be the one responsible for maintaining public infrastructure. This is usually the council or local authority. An avoidable trip, slip or fall at work will be the fault of your employer for breaching their duty of care for you.

A sprain, fracture, or bleeding wound may be the first symptoms of a slip, trip, or fall injury. The real degree of an injury, however, may not become apparent right once, as in the case of soft tissue or spinal damage.

What can at first seem to be a little bump to the head could actually be hiding something dangerous that takes time to manifest.

A good general rule of thumb is to go to your doctor, even if it seems like a small injury, and to the nearest hospital if it's a head injury.

It's a conclusion based on common sense: if you slipped, stumbled, or fell and wounded yourself, even if it seems little, and it appears that someone else was at blame,

then you may have grounds for a compensation claim.

That's the time to seek specialist compensation claim assistance.

We know that slips, trips and falls can be very painful and sometimes embarrassing even. Understandable, your first thought is just to pick yourself up and get on with your day as best you can.

However, if your accident was someone else's fault, recording the evidence of what happened will really help your solicitor if you're eligible to claim slip, trip or fall compensation. 

• Make sure you jot down the time, date and location of your accident and if it happened outside, make a note of the weather conditions - for instance, was it icy?
• Take photos of the accident site too, if it's safe to do so. This is ideally whatever it was that caused it and the surrounding area to show things like a lack of warning signs or inadequate lighting. 
• Often with a slip, trip or fall, passers-by will stop and help. If that's the case, it's worth asking them for their details as they may be happy to give a witness statement supporting your slip and trip claim.
• Record your injury details and keep a daily diary to show how your recovery is going. Take photos of your injury too - smartphones are ideal for this as you can email the pictures easily.

Providing as much proof and useful detail as possible will help your solicitor build the strongest possible case for your slip compensation claim.