Mike Slater MSc.,DipOccHyg.,CFFOH, joint managing director, Diamond Environmental Ltd.
BOHS President 2014/15
Last year in the UK, 148 workers were killed as a result of an accident at work. These deaths were preventable tragedies that devastated families and blighted workplaces. Yet too narrow a focus on that key statistic could create an impression so distorted as to be misleading.
To understand the true magnitude of the UK’s health and safety challenges, we need to be aware that an estimated 13,000 workers died last year as a result of work-related diseases. Globally, the statistics are comparable. According to the ILO, each year, just over 2 million people die from occupational diseases (representing 86 per cent of work-related deaths) and some 321,000 (14 per cent) are killed in work-related accidents.
Of course, health and safety is not only about fatalities. Every year in the UK, 1.1 million workers suffer from ill health caused or made worse by work. In a European survey, around 20 million people reported a work-related health problem in the preceding year. These figures represent a massive quality of life issue for millions of people.
With many serious occupational diseases there is a long period, sometimes of several decades, between the exposure to the hazard and the development of ill health symptoms. This can make the link between the hazard and the disease difficult to establish. Furthermore, even after changes are made in workplaces, there may be a long delay before a reduction in fatalities is seen. For example, in the case of exposure to asbestos, paradoxically, fatalities continue to climb as a result of past exposures, despite far better current controls. Indeed, it will be some years yet before fatalities peak and then decline. However, these complexities are no excuse for the breaches of occupational health law and practice which are seen time and time again.
As the Chartered Society for worker health protection, we at BOHS understand the challenges of tackling ill health in the workplace. Occupational hygienists have the knowledge and skills to help employers put in place cost effective, highly practical solutions which can control work-related health risks. However, we can only achieve this if employers are committed to preventing ill health associated with their processes. Governments have a role too, to send out the right message — that protecting health and safety at work is important — and to make resources available to enforce legal requirements and to provide information and guidance about health risks at work.
The onus is now on society — the health and safety professionals, the employers, the unions, the regulators and the governments — to raise awareness and, more importantly, effect meaningful change, to tackle the burden of occupational disease.
Approaches to managing the risks associated Musculoskeletal disorders
In this episode of the Safety & Health Podcast, we hear from Matt Birtles, Principal Ergonomics Consultant at HSE’s Science and Research Centre, about the different approaches to managing the risks associated with Musculoskeletal disorders.
Matt, an ergonomics and human factors expert, shares his thoughts on why MSDs are important, the various prevalent rates across the UK, what you can do within your own organisation and the Risk Management process surrounding MSD’s.
