Hi All, We had staff walk out during a training sessionyesterday, in the use of evacuation chairs, as the trainer told them "should you drop or injure the patient whilst in the evacuation chair, "YOU WILL be held liable " I was only informed of this today, and the firm concerned have just lost the contract due to finanical savings, and i cannot find any information to clarify this. Has anyone heard of this, or can point me to the relevant legistation? Thanks for your help. Cheers HB

There is a general duty of care during and emergency but really only echo the previously post... Life over limb generally....smoke can kill

Bloody trainers, I wish that they would stick to what they are being paid to talk about! There is no legislation making anybody liable for this, rather it is a matter of common law, under which there exists a duty of care, which anybody is expected to deal with anybody else in a reasonable manner. So yes the person taking someone down the stairs, could if they dropped the person be sued for negligence (not criminally prosecuted), but this is only in theory. It’s only theoretical in that it is in reality not worth suing anybody, if they do not have any money. Rather they would sue the employer, using the principle of vicarious liability, a form of strict liability which means that the employer is liable for any acts or omissions of their employee, unless the employee is on a ‘frolic of their own’. Furthermore to be able to prove negligence it would have to be established that the actions of the person dropping and injuring the person were unreasonable and otherwise negligent. It is difficult to imagine a scenario where, during an evacuation, where lives could be at stake, if someone accidently dropped someone and injured them, they or their employer could be held liable, unless the claimant was able to establish that there was something fundamentally wrong with the evacuation attempt, for example the person carrying out the evacuation was untrained, or the chair had not been maintained. This is a high hurdle for any legal action. Getting back to the trainer, this is exactly the sort of sweeping, statement that you get from people who do not know what they are talking about, which are apparently intended to intimidate the trainees. This is similar to a statement we had recently from a First Aid trainer who informed some of our staff that they must not take injured people to hospital in their own cars as they will become liable for the injures. Basically the law says that any honest attempt to save/help someone will not create any additional liability.