Lifting injuries

Lifting injuries are one of the most common injuries sustained by people in the workplace. Lifting and manual handling injuries can occur whenever your job involves some form of lifting. Therefore whether you work on a building site, in a school, in a shop, in an office or a factory, you could be at risk of injury due to lifting at work.

In order to protect you against the risk of lifting injuries at work, your employer should provide you with manual handling and lifting training as part of your health and safety training. Whilst an employer cannot completely eliminate the risk of lifting accident at work, they can and should take steps to minimise the risks. If they fail to take such steps, they could be liable for an accident at work claim.

Lifting accidents at work can result in a number of different injuries. The most common lifting injury at work is back injury. Back injuries can cause serious problems which can take months or even years to heal. In some cases back injuries may even be permanent. Other common injuries caused by lifting at work may include neck pain, shoulder injuries and hernias.


There are several kinds of lifting injuries that occur in the workplace that can result in work accident claims. The most frequent is lifting or putting down a load, most often when the back is bent rather than the knees. However an increasingly common form of manual handling injury is pushing or pulling loads. Presumably this is because warehouses and other workplaces are increasingly using trolleys or alternative rolling machinery.

In an entirely different sector, nurses, paramedics and other medical staff are also a group who are prone to lifting injuries. With an increasing number of the population weighing more and having a higher tendency to require medical attention, hospital workers are now more at risk of suffering manual handling injuries. Statistics from America show that almost 50% of nurses suffer back pain in any one year and as many as 80% may experience this in their working life.


If you have suffered a lifting injury at work within the past three years, you could be entitled to make a lifting injury at work claim. Our injury solicitors specialise in no win no fee claims and guarantee you keep 100% compensation. To see if you may be eligible to make a compensation claim, complete our online personal injury claim form.