Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 25th April 2024 Issue no. 1111
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HSE releases annual workplace fatality figures
The Health & Safety Executive has released its annual figures for work-related fatal injuries for 2018/19 as well as the number of people known to have died from the asbestos-related cancer, mesothelioma, in 2017. The provisional annual data for work-related fatal injuries revealed that 147 workers were fatally injured between April 2018 and March 2019 (a rate of 0.45 per 100,000 workers).
There has been a long-term reduction in the number of fatalities since 1981. Although 2018/19 saw an increase of six workplace fatalities from 2017/18, the number has remained broadly level in recent years.
Following the release, HSE Chair Martin Temple commented:
"Today's release of workplace fatality statistics is a reminder that despite the UK's world leading position in health & safety, we cannot become complacent as we seek to fulfil our mission in preventing injury, ill health and death at work."
The new figures show how fatal injuries are spread across the different industrial sectors:
Agriculture, forestry and fishing, and Construction sectors continue to account for the largest share of fatal injuries to workers (32 and 30 deaths respectively in 2018/19).
The figures also indicate those sectors where the risk of fatal injury is greatest:
Agriculture, forestry and fishing and Waste and recycling are the worst affected sectors, with a rate of fatal injury some 18 times and 17 times as high as the average across all industries respectively (annual average rates for 2014/15-2018/19).
"These statistics also remind us that, in certain sectors of the economy, workplace death remain worryingly high."
11th July 2019