The Health and Safety Commission (HSC) has published the latest statistics on work-related ill health, workplace injury and enforcement in Great Britain.
Health and Safety Statistics 2005/06 presents a range of top-level statistics, including reports on Revitalising Health and Safety targets.
So far, Great Britain is on target to meet the 10-year strategy for the incidence rate of work-related ill health; 'probably on track' to meet the 10-year target to reduce the number of working days lost per worker due to work-related injury and ill health; not on track to meet the 10-year target in respect of the desired reduction in the rate of fatal and major injury to employees.
Some of the key findings are:
- 212 fatal injuries to workers in 2005/06, down 5% from 223 in 2004/05
- 28,605 major injuries to employees reported in 2005/06, an injury rate of 110.1 per 100 000, down nearly 7% on the previous year
- 117,471 other injuries to employees causing absence of over 3 days. This is equivalent to a rate of 452.2, which is 4% lower than 2004/05
- working days lost in Great Britain due to work-related injury and ill health down from 40 million in 2000/02 to 30 million working days in 2005/06
- ill health accounted for around 24 million working days lost
- stress and musculoskeletal disorders the most common causes of absence
- reported non-fatal major injuries to workers down for the second year in a row to just under 30,000, a drop of 6% from 2004/05
- agriculture and construction remain the two most hazardous industries, with average rates of self-reported non-fatal injuries to workers over the past three years of 2020 and 1790 per 100,000 respectively.
- enforcement notices issued, and prosecutions taken by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and local authority inspectors have decreased in the last two years.
Geoffrey Podger HSE Chief Executive commented:
“I understand the concerns regarding the fall in enforcement and we have recently undertaken an audit of our enforcement activity, which has shown areas for improvement. Initial data for 2006/07 leads us to believe that the fall in enforcement has been significantly reversed and we will continue to monitor this closely.”
The full report can be downloaded by clicking the following link:
