The number of people killed in work-related incidents dropped significantly in 2012/2013 — the first full review period following the Löfstedt report and implementation of the bulk of its recommendations.
The HSE published provisional data today (3 July) that reveal 148 workers were fatally injured between April 2012 and March 2013. This is a decrease of 14 per cent on the previous year’s toll of 172 lives lost.
The overall fatal-injury rate dropped to 0.5 per 100,000 workers — below the five-year average of 0.6. This means that, for the eighth year, Britain has the lowest rate of fatal injuries to workers among the five leading industrial nations in Europe (Germany, France, Spain, and Italy), based on the latest available data from 2010.
Construction and agriculture, as in previous years, recorded the most deaths — with 39 and 29 fatalities, respectively. However, deaths in construction were down 19 per cent on last year’s total of 48, while agriculture saw a drop of 17 per cent on 2011/2012.
The waste and recycling industry, on the other hand, recorded 10 fatal injuries — double the previous year’s total of five and way above the five-year average of six deaths.
Chris Jones, chair of the Waste Industry Safety & Health Forum (WISH), said fatalities are a “poor” measurement of performance, as they jump around from year to year. “The overall RIDDOR rate is a better measure and that rate has been going down for about the last six years. Indeed, figures from the Environmental Services Association show they have gone down by 70 per cent in that time.
“But of course we are concerned about the number of fatalities — one is too many — and we remain committed to our original aim to eliminate fatalities and reduce RIDDOR incidents by a further 10 per cent. But the pragmatic reality is that in any one year they are difficult to eliminate completely.”
Commenting on the overall figures, HSE chair Judith Hackitt said: “These figures are being published in the same week as the 25th anniversary of the Piper Alpha disaster, and are a reminder to us all of why health and safety is so important.
€ﾨ”The fact that Britain continues to have one of the lowest levels of workplace fatalities in Europe will be of little consolation to those who lose family members, friends and work colleagues.€ﾨ€ﾨ
“HSE is striving to make health and safety simpler and clearer for people to understand so that more people do what is required to manage the real risks that cause death and serious injury. €ﾨ€ﾨ
“We all have a part to play to ensure people come home safe at the end of the working day and good leadership, employee engagement and effective risk management are key to achieving this.”
IOSH said it is encouraged by the fall in work-related fatalities but called for a redoubling of efforts to push the figure down even further. The Institution’s Jane White added: “We also believe that the current measurements do not represent the bigger picture, because they exclude the 12,000 people who died in the same time frame from occupational diseases.
“Last year alone, some 8000 people died from cancers caused by work. These are avoidable deaths.”
IOSH’s comments were echoed by the TUC, whose general secretary, Frances O’Grady said it is “worth remembering that the number of immediate fatalities is less than 1 per cent of the total number of people who are killed as a result of their jobs — mainly as a result of diseases such as mesothelioma and other cancers.”
Even more worrying, she said, are cuts to inspection budgets, which mean “fewer workplaces will receive a visit from the safety inspector this year. This risks creating an environment where some employers will pay less attention to workplace safety, content in the knowledge that any safety corners cut are unlikely ever to come to light.”
Ms O’Grady also highlighted that a third of immediate workplace deaths are among the self-employed — “these workers have a fatality rate almost three times higher — 1.1 deaths per 100,000 compared to 0.4 — than other workers”.
Workplace injury lawyers agreed that changes in the law prompted by Löfstedt and otherwise are having a detrimental effect, and warned that “tampering with regulations” could undermine much of the hard work invested in improving health and safety in Britain.
David Urpeth, national head of workplace injury and illness at Irwin Mitchell solicitors, said: “Any number of fatalities and injuries at work is too many, yet the Government’s recent changes to the law through the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act only serve to make it much more difficult for those whose lives have been transformed by work accidents to get the answers and the justice they deserve.
“While we welcome moves to cut unnecessary red tape, often the biggest deterrent stopping businesses from cutting corners with safety is the threat of legal action. Our primary concern is that the increased difficulty of holding employers to account will only be to the detriment of safety and, ultimately, this will lead to the number of reported workplace deaths and injuries rising in the future.”
The provisional workplace fatality statistics for 2012/2013 can be found here: www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/fatals.htm
