Compensation for voluntary worker injured delivering food

I am semi retired but worked as a voluntary delivery driver delivering meals on wheels. The vehicle was a small van with racks for trays but no bulkhead and was donated to the small voluntary group which delivers the food on their behalf by social services. I recently was making a delivery and had to brake suddenly to avoid a child which caused two of the trays containing hot food to dislodge and come forward coating the back of my neck with hot sauce. I received burns and have not worked for them since. Do I have a claim against the social services for causing my injury while undertaking the work on their behalf?

You would appear to have a valid claim as the vehicle should have been properly kitted out for the purpose. The question arises whether you were under the control of social services or the voluntary group. This would probably need further investigation. If you were working (even as a volunteer) for the voluntary group, by law they should have had public liability insurance. This would appear to be a suitable claim to go into Alternative Dispute Resolution which might get you compensated quicker and keep the legal costs down in what should be a fairly straightforward case.

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