HSE Publish 2014/2015 Health and Safety Statistics for Great Britain

Monday, 23rd November 2015

The HSE have recently produced their 2014/15 Health and Safety Statistics Report for Great Britain.

This report comprises of workplace health and safety data which falls into the following main categories:

Ill health/disease: an estimation of the number of people with an illness that is caused or made worse by their work; the rates of work-related ill health for different groups of workers (e.g. by industry and occupation) and the estimated deaths due to work exposures.
Safety: the number of people injured and rates of injury at work for different groups of workers and the number of dangerous occurrence reports from employers.
Enforcement: the number of companies prosecuted for breaches of health and safety legislation and the number of enforcement notices served by health and safety inspectors.
Other categories: the cost to Britain of health and safety failings; number of working days lost due to work-related ill health and injury European comparisons of health and safety indicators.

The most common type of work related illnesses caused or made worse by work are musculoskeletal disorders (MSD’s). Other common health conditions falling under the same bracket include work related stress; work related skin disease and work related asthma. These common illnesses are in addition to long-latency conditions which can be caused by previous work activity and where symptoms can appear many years after exposure e.g. work related hearing loss; asbestos related disease and cancer.

The most common type of work related illnesses to affect the health, care and social care sectors are musculoskeletal disorders and work related stress. These illnesses also account for the majority of days lost.

Broken down, the work related stress research shows us the following:

High rates in human health and social care, education and public administration industries
High rates in health and social care professionals and education professional occupations
High rates in large workplaces (>250 employees)
High rates for workers aged 35 to 54
There have been 234,000 new cases; 440,000 in total.
9.9 million working days were lost 2014/15.

What the research tells us about work-related musculoskeletal disorder is that:

There are high rates in agriculture, postal and courier activities, construction and health care industries.
There are high rates in building trades, nurses, personal care and skilled agriculture occupations.
There are high rates for workers aged over 45.
Manual handling is the main work activity causing back disorders.
9.5 million working days were lost 2014/1.
There have been 169,000 new cases; 553,000 in total.
Approximately 40% of disorders affect the back, and 40% affect the upper limbs.

The HSE report highlights that the most frequent causes of injury are manual handling, slips and trips and falls from height and that the UK is one of the better performing EU countries in terms of percentage of establishments who conduct regular risk assessments.

To read the full annual report of the latest top level statistics on work-related ill health, workplace fatalities and injuries, and enforcement in Great Britain visit: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/overall/hssh1415.pdf