Chemical Injury Claims
Check if you can claim compensation
If something you handled at work burned your skin, damaged your eyes or left you with dermatitis, you may be able to claim compensation. We handle chemical injury claims on a No Win No Fee basis and will explain your options clearly.
Regulated solicitors
Years' experience
No Win No Fee
Can you make a chemical injury claim?
Most people picture something corrosive in a drum marked with a hazard symbol. In practice the substances behind these claims are usually ordinary: cleaning products, degreasers, cement, hair colour, catering chemicals, and water itself where hands are wet all day. The law does not care how dangerous the substance sounds. It asks whether your employer assessed the risk and controlled it.
Those duties come from the COSHH Regulations, and they are specific: work out what the substance can do, prevent contact where that is possible, and where it is not, provide protection that actually works and check it is being used. A claim usually turns on which of those steps was skipped, and that is something we establish from the employer’s records rather than something you need to prove yourself.
Two kinds of harm, two very different stories
Chemical injuries arrive in two ways. Some happen in a second: a splash, a spill, a bottle decanted into the wrong container, and the damage is done before anyone reaches a tap. Those cases are usually clear cut, because there is an incident, a date and often an accident book entry.
The other kind creeps. Hands that are red and sore by Friday, fine again by Monday, then worse the next week, until the skin cracks and does not heal. People live with that for years before anyone calls it an injury, and it is compensable in exactly the same way as a burn.
people in Great Britain who worked in the previous year were estimated to have skin problems caused or made worse by work.
Many work-related skin problems can be prevented by controlling exposure, using suitable protection and providing proper washing facilities. If an employer failed to manage the risk and you were harmed, you may be able to claim compensation.
Chemical injuries we handle claims for
From a single splash to damage built up over years of handling the same products.
Chemical burns
Acids, alkalis, oven and drain cleaners, and wet cement, which burns slowly enough that people often do not realise until the damage is deep. Scarring makes chemical burn claims among the more serious we handle.
Contact dermatitis
Cracked, itching, bleeding skin from repeated contact with soaps, solvents, oils or wet work. The most common workplace skin problem, and the one most often dismissed as just dry hands.
Eye injuries
Splashes and vapour causing anything from painful irritation to lasting damage to sight. Goggles that were never issued, or never fitted properly, sit behind most of these.
Inhalation and gassing
Fumes in confined spaces, mixed cleaning products releasing chlorine gas, or a poorly ventilated workshop. Effects range from a bad shift to lasting lung damage.
Solvent exposure
Headaches, dizziness and, with heavy long-term exposure, lasting neurological effects from working with solvents where extraction or masks were missing.
Occupational asthma
Substances such as isocyanates, flour dust, epoxy resins and solder fumes can trigger occupational asthma. Once sensitised, even low exposure may cause wheezing or breathlessness, often improving away from work.
It is usually soap, not acid
The substances that damage the most skin at work are not the dramatic ones. According to HSE, soaps and cleaners and wet work have consistently been the most commonly recorded causes of occupational skin disease, ahead of rubber chemicals, preservatives and bleaches.
The occupations affected follow from that, and they are not the ones people imagine. If you are a hairdresser, a chef or a beautician reading this with hands that split every winter, you are closer to the centre of this problem than someone in a chemical plant, and you are far less likely to have been told it counts.
- Beauticians, with the highest recorded rate of any occupation
- Cooks and catering staff, from constant wet work and cleaning chemicals
- Florists, handling plants, water and preservatives all day
- Hairdressers and barbers, from shampoos, bleaches and colour
HSE incidence data for 2010 to 2019. Gloves, barrier creams, skin checks and somewhere proper to wash are all things an employer is supposed to sort out.
- The injury itself, any lasting scarring, and the effect on how you feel about it
- Treatment, dermatology, dressings, creams and the travel that goes with them
- Earnings lost, and reduced earnings where you cannot go back to the same work
- Help at home while your hands or your eyes are out of action
What these claims take into account
Two things drive the value: what the injury did, and what it left behind. A burn that heals cleanly and a burn that scars a forearm permanently are different claims, and dermatitis that clears with the right gloves is a different claim from dermatitis that ends a catering career.
Because so much depends on how your skin or your health settles over time, we value these on medical evidence rather than putting a number on them at the first phone call.
Evidence in a chemical injury claim
Everything starts with knowing exactly what you were exposed to. Once the substance is identified, the rest of the case tends to follow from documents the employer already holds.
Nothing written down at the time? Common, especially with skin problems that built up slowly. It makes the medical records and your colleagues more important, not the claim impossible.
No Win No Fee chemical injury claims
Starting costs nothing, and if the claim does not succeed you will not pay for our work, subject to the terms of your agreement. If it succeeds, a success fee agreed with you at the outset comes out of the compensation.
Claims are paid by the employer’s insurance rather than by the business, which is worth knowing if you are still working there or the firm is a small one.
You will see the full terms in writing before anything is signed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know before starting your claim.
Can I make a chemical injury claim?
If a substance you handled at work injured you and your employer did not assess or control that risk properly, a claim is usually possible. It applies to sudden injuries like burns and to conditions that built up over time, such as dermatitis. A free conversation with our team will tell you honestly whether yours is worth pursuing.
Can I make a chemical burn claim?
Yes. What matters is who was responsible for keeping you safe from the substance. A chemical burn claim is most often brought against an employer, but it can also involve the occupier of premises or the supplier of a product that was wrongly labelled or packaged. Burns tend to be valued higher where they leave visible scarring, so photographs taken as the injury heals are worth keeping.
My skin clears up when I am not at work. Does that mean anything?
It means a great deal. Skin that improves on holiday and flares again within days of going back is the classic pattern of occupational dermatitis, and it is one of the strongest indicators that work is the cause. Tell your GP about the link so it is recorded in your notes, because that record is what the claim is later built on.
I was never given gloves. Does that settle it?
It is a strong start, though not the whole picture. Under COSHH, protective equipment is what an employer turns to when exposure cannot be prevented another way, so the questions are whether the risk should have been designed out first, whether the right protection was provided, and whether anyone checked it was suitable and being used. Being given the wrong gloves for a particular chemical can be as much of a failure as being given none.
Can I claim if I was agency or self-employed?
Often, yes. Duties to control hazardous substances are owed to people affected by the work rather than only to direct employees, so the business running the site can be responsible for agency staff, contractors and self-employed workers using its chemicals or working in its conditions. Who exactly is liable turns on who controlled the work, and that is a question for us.
Check if you can make a claim
Tell us what you were handling and what it did to your skin, eyes or breathing. You do not need the name of the chemical or any paperwork to get started, and there is no obligation to go ahead.
- Free, no-obligation review
- No Win No Fee available
- SRA-regulated solicitors
Check if you can make a claim
Takes less than 60 seconds
Not sure if you have a claim?
A lot of people assume their hands are just the job, or that a burn that healed does not count. Tell us what you were handling and we will give you an honest answer about chemical injury claims, free and with no obligation. Time limits usually run for three years, so it costs nothing to check where you stand.
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