Statistics on death and injury and work

The TUC report, Toxic, corrosive and hazardous — the government’s record on health and safety (https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/Government%20record%202014.pdf), sets out that the changes to reporting have meant that it is much harder to make comparisons with previous years.

“The HSE has carried out self-reported work-related illness (SWI) surveys since 1990. These are of people who have conditions that they think have been caused or made worse by their current or past work. From 2003-04 these were done every year but in 2011-12 this was changed to once every two years, so work-related ill health data was not collected in 2012-13. This is a major loss and makes a big dent in the statistics,” says the TUC.

“However, the biggest loss was caused by the changes to RIDDOR [see above]. Now only injuries that lead to more than seven days’ absence from full duties (previously three days) are reportable, and the criteria have changed. This means it is impossible to make accurate comparisons. This is shown by the latest HSE report, which claims that workplace major injuries hit an all-time low for 2012-13, yet the statistics show that the number of days lost through workplace injury is up from 4.3 million to 5.2 million, implying that the number of people injured is actually going up. So which is correct?”

The HSE publishes details of reported incidents, broken down by type of incident, geographical region and sector at: www.hse.gov.uk/statistics

Information on work-related deaths

The HSE provides statistics on fatal injuries at work. The most recent information relates to the latest “full-year” statistics on fatal injuries in the workplace for 2013-14.

In 2013-14, the HSE reported that 133 workers were killed at work, corresponding to a rate of fatal injury of 0.44 deaths per 100,000 workers.

The figure of 133 worker deaths in 2013-14 is 19% lower than the average for the past five years (164). The latest rate of fatal injury of 0.44 compares to the five-year average rate of 0.56.

HSE statistics on work-related deaths mask the true picture

In practice, the HSE statistics on work-related deaths under-represent the true picture of work-related deaths.

The HSE statistics for 2013-14 — 133 workers killed, a rate of fatal injury of 0.44 deaths per 100,000 workers — are the figures the government relies on to sustain its argument that Britain’s workplaces are becoming safer and that consequently, less regulation is needed.

But these figures are badly distorted for a number of reasons. In particular, they only includes deaths that happen relatively quickly, as a result of sudden injury. They excludes many thousands of people who die from diseases caused or exacerbated by work, such as work-related cancers or mesothelioma, or from an injury that leads to a later death. The TUC describes occupational disease as a “time bomb” which kills at least 100 times the number killed in workplace “accidents”.

The figures also exclude all work-related road traffic incidents, and all deaths reported to other authorities apart from the HSE, as well as suicides as a result of work-related depression. There is also significant under-reporting of accidents to the regulator.

Estimate of deaths by work-related illness and injury

Hilda Palmer of the Hazards campaign has compiled the following approximate estimates of the number of individuals killed by work-related illness and injury each year:

• 18,000 deaths from work-related cancer, estimated at 12% of all cancers (range 8%-16%) due to work, including at least 5,000 deaths from asbestos related cancers;

• up to 20,000 deaths from heart disease — 20% of deaths work-related due to dust, stress, long hours and shift work;

• approximately 6,000 deaths from respiratory illness — 15%-20% of obstructive lung disease is work-related;

• approximately 6,000 deaths from other work-related diseases, for example neurological diseases.

This gives a total of up to 50,000 deaths from occupational disease each year. The TUC uses a minimum estimate of 20,000 deaths.