Deaths in the Workplace

The Health and Safety Executive have just released their latest statistics for work related fatal injuries in the UK.

It is always difficult to write impartially about such matters since all fatal injuries are catastrophic for the relatives and friends of those who have lost their lives. Consequently, it can seem somewhat insensitive to lose those personal tragedies within a table of statistics.

Nevertheless, at a time when the work of health and safety appears to be under serious scrutiny, primarily because it has been trivialised in some quarters, it is worth examining the information to reveal the true achievements of health and safety legislation.

When first released by the HSE, figures are stated as provisional since many incidents are still the subject of investigation. However they are probably close enough to reveal significant trends.

Workplace Fatalities

Taking the overall figures for the current year (2009/10) there have been 151 fatal accidents, which equates to one person losing their life for every 200,000 workers.

This number of fatalities shows a considerable improvement on the average of 220 fatalities over the previous five years. It is still 151 deaths too many but with more than 30% reduction it is certainly a welcome improvement.

Not only is this an improvement for the UK workforce, but when compared with other EU States, the UK is consistently seen to have one of the lowest levels of fatalities.

Some Workers at Higher Risk than Others

This does not mean there is room for complacency as long as there are any people losing their lives or being seriously injured at work. Quite the contrary, it should spur us on to make our workplaces even safer. Not only so, but there are wide variations of accidents across industry sectors so perhaps there should be increased emphasis on these areas, for example:

According to the statistics, Agriculture is top for fatal injuries. Although there has been a small improvement in the latest figures, there are still between eight and nine fatalities for every 100,000 workers.
Then there is Construction where there are typically two fatal accidents for every 100,000 workers.

From time to time a review of Health and Safety is welcome, but we should beware of being distracted by incidents that are either mythical or which demonstrate a serious lack of common sense. These should be addressed by all means but we must never lose sight of the real achievements of health and safety and the obvious potential to save more lives and avoid serious injuries.

You can view the latest information on the HSE website at http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/

And you can view corresponding information from across the EU at http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/

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