Archived press release
Date Published:
New figures released by HSE on 30th June show number of people killed at work in Britain fell to a record low last year
The provisional figures released by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) show that worker deaths in Britain are at an all time low and this can only be described as great news!
There is more work to do in agriculture and clearly construction must strive to continue the downward trend. So whilst the news is very welcome given the plateau of recent years, we must be careful not to become complacent, particularly as we climb out of recession and perhaps try to create more output with fewer people.
Experience from recent economic cycles shows that there are often fewer fatalities during recessions. Sensible risk management is even more important – a message that Lord Young will hopefully be aware of – now is not the time to ease off the throttle – we need to be more vigilant, not less so.
Health of course remains a challenge with cases of traditional occupational disease such as COPD and silicosis still on the rise, and stress related ill-health and musculoskeletal disorder stubbornly refusing to fall.
The provisional data shows that 151 workers were killed between 1 April 2009 and 31 March 2010 compared to 178 deaths in the previous year and an average number over the last 5 years of 220 deaths per year.
Judith Hackitt, the HSE Chair said:
"It's really very encouraging to see a further reduction in workplace fatalities in the past year. This is performance which owes much to good practice, leadership and employee engagement. No doubt the recession has resulted in lower levels of activity in some sectors and a decrease in the numbers of new inexperienced recruits has also contributed to this fall in fatalities.
"We should also remember that 151 families are mourning the loss of someone who last year went out to work and never came home. Being one of the best health and safety performers in the world means continuing to strive to drive these numbers down further - not getting complacent about what we've collectively achieved and recognising the new challenges as we emerge from the recession.
"As with all health and safety statistics, today's announcement is a combination of encouraging news about improvement but also a salutary reminder of the tragedies of lives lost at work."
Judith Hackitt added:
"No industry can or should regard high levels of workplace death and injury as being 'part of the job'. It doesn't have to be this way as many other sectors have shown by their improvement."
Large falls have been recorded in some of the other historically most dangerous industries in Britain:
- 41 fatal injuries to construction workers were recorded - a rate of 2.0 deaths per 100,000 workers, compared to an average of 66 deaths in the past five years and a fall from the 52 deaths (and rate of 2.4) recorded in 2008/09.
- 42 fatal injuries to services workers were recorded, a rate of 0.2 deaths per 100,000, compared to an average of 72 deaths in the past five years and a fall from the 62 deaths (and rate of 0.3) recorded in 2008/09.
- 24 fatal injuries to manufacturing workers were recorded, a rate of 0.9 deaths per 100,000, compared to an average of 38 deaths in the past five years and a fall from 33 deaths (and rate of 1.1) in 2008/09.
The new figures show that compared with the latest data available for the four other leading industrial nations in Europe - Germany, France, Spain and Italy - Great Britain has, for more than the last six years, had the lowest rate of fatal injuries.