A quick round-up of the biggest health and safety stories from the week commencing 18th November 2019:
A ‘No-light’ Christmas in Penbury
Last week Kent County Council refused to issue a Christmas lights permit for Penbury because the planned lights and decorations are twice as heavy as the lamp posts can safely hold. This last minute decision by the council has left no room for alternative arrangements. Full story here.
Egg production
company ordered to shell out over £60,000 in fines
A Lancashire egg production company was fined £60,000 by the HSE after a forklift overturned and seriously injured its driver.
“Companies should be aware that HSE will not hesitate to take appropriate enforcement action against those that fall below the required standards” said the HSE inspector, as Staveley’s Eggs Ltd were also ordered to pay costs of £4,259.42. Full story here.
Combustible cladding
concerns could involve ‘more than 100,000 buildings’
According to Inside Housing, minutes from a September meeting between representatives of London boroughs and government officials revealed that reducing the official high-rise building threshold from 18-metres to 11-metres would raise the amount of buildings under scrutiny from just 12,000 to over 100,000. Full story here.
The HSE have released the annual health and safety figures for the year 2018/2019, and here are the key takeaways:
1. Work related ill-health cases are a mixed bag:
The cases for new and long-standing illnesses last year totalled 1.36 million; and this year’s figure is down ever so slightly (1.35 million); however work-related musculoskeletal disorder cases (498,000) are up from last year (470,000) by a large 28,000 cases.
Stress, depression or anxiety cases (which made up 44% of all illness cases last year and an almost identical 45% this year) are up by around 6,000 and are responsible for 54% of all working days lost due to illness this year. However, working days missed due to stress, depression or anxiety are 2.7 million less than last year; a significant improvement.
Overall, working days lost due to all work-related ill health are down by almost 3.5 million; however the annual total costs of illness to businesses (around £15 billion) has remained unchanged from last year.
2. Fatal injuries to workers have gone up:
In 2017/18 there were 141 worker fatalities and in 2018/19 the figure is
up to 147, which is the joint highest figure for 6 years but slightly lower (149)
than the ten-year average since 2009/10. However a downward trend still remains
overall, with the latest ten-year average a full 56% lower than the previous decade’s
average of 233 fatalities a year.
3. Workplace fatal injuries to members of the public have gone down:
Fatal injuries to members of the public have declined from last year,
with the latest figure of 92 the lowest since 1996 and well below the 1999 to 2019
twenty-year average of 322* fatalities. In Europe as a whole, the UK still retains
a lower workplace fatality rate than Germany, Italy, France and Spain – in fact
the UK three-year average rate for 2013-2015 was the lowest of all EU member
states.
*Major changes in 2013/14 and 2015/16 to what is included in public
fatalities figures should be taken into account when interpreting these
statistics.
4. Less people are getting injured at work:
This year there were 2,323 less non-fatal injuries than last year (69,208 injuries compared to last year’s figures of 71,531). This latest figure is the lowest recorded since 1985, and the rate of non-fatal injuries to workers has shown a long-term downward trend overall. As a result, 28.2 million working days this year were lost due to work-related ill-health and non-fatal injuries compared to 30.7 million days last year; a significant improvement.
5. The HSE prosecuted less cases this year
2017/18 saw 11,522 notices issued by enforcing bodies, 493 cases prosecuted (or referred to COPFS in Scotland) by the HSE, and £72.6 million in fines from such convictions; and 2018/19 saw slightly less issued notices (11,040), more than 120 less prosecutions (364) and £54.5 million in fines — £18.1 million less than last year. However, the average fine per case this year is similar to last year (£150,000 and £148,000 respectively), which indicates that the significant drop in fines is most likely a result of the fall in HSE prosecutions.
HSE (2019) ‘Historical picture statistics in Great Britain, 2019 – trends in work-related ill health and workplace injury’. Available at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/history/index.htm (accessed: 12/11/2019)
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