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Trip and slip hazards are a common cause of injury, both in the workplace and elsewhere. Your employer has responsibility to maintain safe access routes around, and within your place of employment and slips and trips can result in serious and debilitating injury. Many slips and trips result from the negligence of employers and simple cost-effective measures can reduce these accidents

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Slips and trips are the most common cause of major injuries at work. Don't laugh about slips and trips - they can result in serious accidents.

Slips and trips:

• occur in almost all workplaces
• result in broken bones. 95% of major slips result in a fracture
• are often the initial causes for a range of other accident types, such as falls from height.
• comprise 33% of all reported major injuries in the workplace
• comprise 20% of over-3-day injuries to employees
• cause on average 2 deaths in the workplace per year
• are responsible for 50% of all reported accidents to members of the public
• cost employers £512 million per year
• cost the health service £133 million per year
• have an incalculable human cost to the sufferers and their family

Always take legal medical and legal advice if you slip or trip at work. injurywatch.co.uk's free legal helpdesk is always a good place to start.

Most slips occur in wet or contaminated conditions, and most trips are due to poor housekeeping. A TUC survey found that the four main causes were:

• ‘substances on the floor’ (42.9%);
• ‘obstructions’ (30.6%);
• ‘adverse weather’ (27.8%); and
• ‘poor state of flooring’ (27.6%).

In all the above circumstances the employer may be found to have been negligent.

Areas where an employer may be negligent include:

• use of unsuitable surfaces
• failure to replace worn surfaces
• failure to clear ice or other hazards on access routes
• failure to prevent a floor becoming wet or contaminated
• failure to provide non-slip surfaces when wetness or contamination is inevitable
• use of exposed trailing cables
• spillage of substances inadequately warned/clean up to slow
• provision of poor or too infrequent cleaning and maintenance of surfaces
• use of unsuitable cleaning materials
• failure to provide adequate lighting
• inadequate provision of storage facilities
• not having obstructions removed or their being inadequately warned
• area overcrowded
• inadequate guard rails, handrails and barriers
• failure to provide suitable or adequate footwear

Any premises may become temporarily unsafe, say from spillages etc. An employer should put measures in place (such as signage or sealing off the area) to ensure that the risks of a site which becomes temporarily unsafe are minimised to prevent harm to workers and the public.

As always, gather the evidence:

• see a doctor -the effect of your injuries might be obvious in most cases, but injuries don't always show up straight away
• keep a dossier. Include a diary recording all the details of the incident, who you saw and all the expenses or losses you incurred, including receipts
• record the details of the incident - if your slip or trip results from an uneven surface, take photographs of the site (with a ruler to show the scale and signed and dated on the back)
• gather personal details of all the people who witnessed the incident
• gather information (backed up by witness statements from others) as to how long the hazard had remained unrectified. It may be that a surface had not been mended or that clean-up of surfaces was insufficiently frequent.
• note and detail any measures (such as signage) which had been taken to warn of, or otherwise diminish the risk
• note and detail any measures (such as absence of handrails) which exacerbated the risk
• if the injury results from and inherently slippy surface, your legal team should get a slip assessment report which may prove that the surface was inappropriate and unsuitable or unsafe, either permanently or under certain conditions.