A school support worker who blames the strain of pushing wheelchair-dependent pupils between classes for her chronic back pain has had her hopes of a £50,000 compensation payout dashed by judges.
Helen Sloan, from Brighouse, had been working at 1,400-pupil Rastrick High School for only 13 days when she pulled her back whilst moving a disabled schoolgirl.
Her lawyers said the incident in September 2008 was “the straw that broke the camel’s back” after successive days of strain.
Mrs Sloan, in her 40s and who was specifically employed to help children with special needs, was left with lasting damage to her back and shoulder so severe that she was unable to lift her right arm above shoulder heigh.
She left her job after less than two months in post and accused the school of failing to carry out a thorough risk assessment or provide comprehensive training in the manual task of pushing children in wheelchairs.
Her legal team insisted that the school should have done more to test the weight of disabled children she helped - including the combined weight of child and wheelchair - and should have considered providing powered wheelchairs.
However, the school’s lawyers pointed out that the schoolgirl Mrs Sloan was pushing at the critical time weighed only seven stone and dismissed the idea of providing powered wheelchairs as impractical.
Mrs Sloan had her claim dismissed by a judge last year and an Appeal Court ruling means that she will go without a penny in compensation.
Mr Justice David Richards said: “When all is said and done, the safe pushing of manual wheelchairs is not a difficult or complex matter”.
There was evidence that learning support assistants, including Mrs Sloan, were given specific training in a number of manual tasks, including pushing wheelchairs at the start of their employment.
Whilst two of the slopes of the school were too steep for wheelchairs, Mrs Sloan suffered her injury when manoeuvring on a flat surface.
Dismissing her appeal, the judge, sitting with Lords Justice Moore-Bick and Ryder, concluded that the school had ‘taken appropriate steps to reduce the risk of injury to the lowest level reasonably practicable’.
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