Claiming for personal injury at work?

recently been injured at work. is it possible to negotiate with employer directly or is it necessary to go through solicitor?

solicitor's say i stand to gain 2000 - 2800
what do they stand to make? would they normaly claim their fee from the company i was working for?

This is what you require about UK employment law.

Accidents in the workplace
Your employer has a duty to protect you and tell you about health and safety issues that affect you. They also have a legal obligation to report certain accidents and incidents, and to pay you statutory sick pay, or contractual sick pay if you are entitled to it, if you need time off because of an accident at work.
Reporting an accident at work
Your employer must report serious work-related accidents, diseases and dangerous incidents to the Incident Contact Centre of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), or in Northern Ireland the Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland (HSENI). They must report:

death
major injuries (for example, a broken arm or ribs)
dangerous incidents (for example, the collapse of scaffolding, people overcome by gas)
any other injury that stops an employee from doing their normal work for more than three days
disease
The reporting must be done by your employer, but if you're involved it's a good idea to make sure it's been reported.
Who is responsible for health and safety at work?
Your employer has to carry out a risk assessment and do what's needed to take care of the health and safety of employees and visitors. This includes deciding how many first aiders are needed, and what kind of first aid equipment and facilities should be provided. First aiders have no statutory right to extra pay, but some employers do offer this.

Employees must also take reasonable care over their own health and safety

Hello.
There are no rules, but suffice to say that if you negotiate a settlement directly with your employer, against what do you measure the offer?
Your solicitor will or should know what the injury is worth (if it went to court) and therefore give a baseline to negotiate against.
If it's a very minor injury, with no ongoing consequences, then by all means come to a mutual accommodation with your employer.
Otherwise, get someone with expertise on board.

As to legal fees, assuming your case is taken on a CFA (no-win no-fee as it is sometimes known) then your solicitor's fees are paid by the employer, or more probably their insurer.

As to what the solicitor charges, their rate is determined by the amount of work the case requires. Simple case, low fees; big complicated case, big complicated fees.

But you'll not be paying them in any event.

Guess it depends on how freely your company will talk to you about this. May be worth approaching them - if you go through a solicitor they will find out eventually and it may create some bad feeling.

Yes, it's right, if your solicitor wins the case, the losing party (your employer) is obliged to pay the court costs. This is the case in any civil action, so bear in mind that if you lose, you will be liable for your company's costs. This is where legal cover on things like your home contents can come in handy. If you've got a solicitor on no win, no fee then they will insist you use this insurance so they're out of pocket as little as possible in the event that they lose.

And your next employer will ask you on your application form if you have ever put a claim in. If you say no, you'll be sacked for lying. If you say yes you'll not get the job.

Think very carefully.

In the US employers have to carry worker's compensation insurance for workers who are injured on the job. Normally, it is not a personal injury issue.