Latest UK Health and Safety Statistics Highlight Areas of Concern

The UK’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has published the latest statistics on health and safety in Great Britain, including information on fatalities, accidents and illnesses by occupation, industry, region and country.

It found that in 2017/18 there were 144 fatal injuries in the UK, a number which is down from 287 in 1996/7. Of these 144 deaths, 138 were male workers, and nearly 40 percent were to workers aged 60 and over, even though these workers made up only 10 percent of the workforce.

The numbers highlight the fact that the major factors of difference in health and safety risk are the industry in which a person works, and whether they are self-employed – the fatal injury rate for the self-employed was more than double than for employees.

Sectors with high fatality rates were construction, agriculture, waste disposal and recycling, and offshore fishing. Sectors with high ill health rates were utility supply, health and social work, public administration, defence, and education.

Worker health and wellbeing

On the subject of worker health, around 1.4 million workers were suffering from an illness they believed was caused or made worse by their current or past work. Over 500,000 of these started in 2017/18.

Stress, depression and anxiety was the most common type of work-related illness, accounting for 44 percent of work-related ill health and 57 percent of working days lost in 2017/18.

There are around 12,000 deaths each year from occupational lung disease and cancer estimated to have been caused by past exposure to chemicals and dust at work. More than half of these deaths were caused by past exposure to asbestos.

Economic cost and international comparisons

The total economic cost of workplace self-reported injuries and ill health in 2016/17 was £15.0 billion – half of which fell on individuals, and half on employers and government/taxpayers.

International comparisons reveal the UK has fewer fatal accidents at work than most other European countries, with 0.5 fatal accidents at work per 100,000 workers in 2015. In fact, this is the lowest fatal accident at work rate of all other EU countries with the exception of Finland.

This contrasts with a rate of 3.62 in France and the EU average rate of 1.3.

Read the full report here.