Can I claim for a work accident during my probationary period?

Probation is an employment concept, not a safety one

A probationary period is a feature of the employment contract — a period at the start of the job during which the employer can assess whether the new starter is a good fit and, if necessary, end the relationship on shorter notice. It has nothing to do with health and safety. The moment you start work, you are entitled to the full protection of the safety framework and to the full right to claim compensation if an accident happens because your employer was at fault.

The employer's duty of care under the common law and under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 begins on your first day. The requirement to provide a safe system of work, safe equipment, competent colleagues and adequate training does not have a qualifying period. Employers' liability insurance covers probationary employees in exactly the same way it covers everyone else.

Our guide on the first day at work sets out how early-in-employment claims run, which will overlap with a probationary-period claim in most cases.

Two separate things: personal-injury rights and employment rights

The confusion many probationary employees have comes from mixing up two very different legal ideas.

Personal-injury rights — the right to be compensated for an accident caused by someone else's fault — exist from day one and apply to everyone regardless of employment status. They do not require any minimum length of service. They are civil rights, run through the civil courts (or in most cases settled by insurers), and they are independent of anything the employer decides about your job.

Employment rights — the right not to be unfairly dismissed, the right to redundancy pay, and so on — are different. Ordinary unfair dismissal rights generally require two years' continuous service, which someone on probation will not yet have. That means the employer usually has more freedom to end a probationary employee's contract than a longer-serving employee's, on notice.

Those two systems run in parallel. Being on probation may affect what happens to your job. It does not affect your right to claim for the injury.

What if you are dismissed after making a claim?

Some employees are told, more or less openly, that "raising things" during probation is a bad idea. That is not the law. It is automatically unfair for an employer to dismiss an employee for asserting a statutory right in relation to health and safety, and — critically — that protection does not require two years' service. It applies from day one.

That means an employer who dismisses a probationary employee because they were injured, because they reported a hazard, or because they were minded to bring a claim is exposing themselves to a claim for automatic unfair dismissal in the employment tribunal, in addition to the personal-injury claim in the civil court.

The two claims are separate and are usually run separately, sometimes by different lawyers. Our guide on whether you can be sacked after a work accident explains the framework in more detail, including the practical evidence points that matter if a dismissal follows an accident report.

Why early-employment claims sometimes need more work

Although the legal position is straightforward, probationary-period claims can be practically harder to prove than long-service claims. That is because you may not yet have had a full induction, may not have completed sign-off on training, may not have been given a copy of key policies, and may not have a strong record of the site's practices. Where the employer alleges you were not doing what you were trained to do, the answer often is "because I had not been trained yet" — which is itself an employer failure, but it needs supporting evidence.

Steps that help:

• Report the accident to your employer that day and get it entered in the accident book. Ask for a copy.
• Note who was supervising you, and whether you had been given any written instructions.
• Keep any induction paperwork, training records, or online modules you had been told to complete.
• Get medical attention promptly, so the injury and its work connection are on record from the start.
• Take photographs of the scene, the equipment involved, and any relevant signage or hazard.
• Keep a diary of symptoms and time off work.

Do not rush to leave the job

Many probationary employees, understandably, feel their position is precarious after an accident and want to walk away. Before doing so, take advice. Leaving employment can affect certain heads of loss (for example, the way loss of earnings is calculated), and it can complicate the employment side of things if a later dismissal claim is contemplated. It is generally better to stay in the job while getting advice, if you are physically able to do so, than to resign in the heat of the moment.

For a wider picture of the rights that apply once an accident has happened, see our overview of injury at work rights.