What do the latest figures on workplace injuries and accidents show and what can international companies with UK operations learn from them?
Each year the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) publish statistics detailing the number of people in Great Britain who are seriously injured or killed in workplace accidents; or diagnosed with a serious/fatal occupational disease, as reported under RIDDOR. The statistics are measured April to March and the HSE have recently released their provisional statistics for fatalities caused by workplace accidents in the year 2019/20.
In the 12-month period between 2019/20, a total of 111 workers were killed in workplace accidents in Great Britain. That averages out to just over 2 people per week killed doing their job. It is worth noting that these figures only include fatalities caused by workplace accidents. They do not include fatal accidents involving workers travelling on a public highway (e.g. driving on business) or travelling by air or sea. They also do not include fatalities caused by occupational diseases, or workers who died from COVID-19.
Looking at the 111 fatal injuries to workers in more detail, the industries where these incidents occurred were as follows:
The main causes of the fatal accidents were:
In terms of the annual average, 111 fatalities is a decrease of 38 from the previous year and the lowest annual number on record. The following chart shows the decrease in annual figures from 2008/09 to 2019/20:
However, although there is a general downward trend, the significantly lower figure of 111 for 2019/20 is thought to be partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the reduction in workplace activities in February and March of this year.
Comparing the annual number of fatal injuries to workers in the UK against other EU countries, Eurostat provide the following analysis for 2017 (the latest figures available). The chart shows the UK to have a fatal injury incident rate of 0.52 per 100,000 employees – one of the lowest of all European countries:
Note: The HSE do not provide global comparisons, for example with the USA, Asia etc, due to differences in definitions of workplace accidents and reporting systems.
Although the UK has one of the lowest incident rates in Europe for fatal injuries to workers, in 2019/20 there were still 111 people in Great Britain who went to work to do their job, but never went home again. It is imperative that such tragic incidents are used by other businesses to learn from, improve their own health and safety standards, and do all that they reasonably can to prevent a similar incident occurring in their organisation.
For further information and analysis of the latest statistics for workplace fatalities, injuries and occupational diseases, contact your panel of specialists at [email protected]