Note: As of November 2011, the employment data source used by HSE’s Statistics Branch changed to the Annual Population Survey (APS). The injury rates presented here were published in June 2011 and hence differ from those published in November on the new basis. Fatal injury statistics that take account of the revised employment data source will be published in June 2012.
The figures for 2010/11 are, at this stage, provisional. They will be finalised in June 2012 following any necessary adjustments. This arrangement allows for the fact that the investigations of workplace fatal injuries are often complex and can take considerable time. In the course of these investigations new facts can emerge to affect judgements on issues such as whether the accident was work-related or whether the worker was based at the site of the accident. This means that initial views regarding the reportability of the accident or the industrial sector to which it should be assigned can prove to be incorrect. The delay of a year in finalising the figures allows for such matters to be fully resolved in the light of formal interviews with all relevant witnesses, forensic investigation and coroners rulings. Also, Regulation 4 of RIDDOR covers situations were someone dies of their injuries within a year of their accident.
These statistics relate to accidents that are covered by the provisions of RIDDOR (Reporting of Injuries Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations, 1995). They therefore cover accidents that are reportable to either HSE, the relevant Local Authority or the Office of Rail Regulation. For the vast majority of such reportable accidents the Health and Safety at Work etc Act, 1974 is the main legislation applicable. Further detail on fatal accidents that are excluded from these figures is provided in the Technical Notes.
The following table shows provisional information on the numbers of fatal injuries for the twelve months commencing 1 April 2010 and ending 31 March 2011.
| Main industry SIC2007 |
Agriculture | Extractive; gas and electricity supply | Manufacturing | Water supply; sewerage, waste and recycling | Construction | Services1 | All Industries |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Employees | 13 | 3 | 25 | 10 | 32 | 37 | 120 |
| Self employed | 21 | - | 2 | - | 18 | 10 | 51 |
| Workers** | 34 | 3 | 27 | 10 | 50 | 47 | 171 |
| Members of the public | 8 | - | 2 | 1 | 2 | 305 | 318 |
| Total fatalities | 42 | 3 | 29 | 11 | 52 | 352 | 489 |
p = Provisional
* Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) 2007.
** The term 'workers' includes employees and the self-employed combined.
1 The figures for services include railway incidents reported to the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR). Of the member of the public figures for services (305), 250 were deaths of members of the public in incidents on the railways, including suicides or trespass. These railway-related incidents come within scope of RIDDOR.
The following table shows a regional breakdown of the fatal injuries to workers.
| Country / GOR | All Industries |
|---|---|
| England | 143 |
| of which: | |
| South West | 8 |
| South East | 14 |
| London | 17 |
| East | 20 |
| East midlands | 16 |
| West Midlands | 13 |
| Yorkshire | 24 |
| North West | 25 |
| North East | 6 |
| Wales | 11 |
| Scotland | 15 |
| Not known | 2 |
| Total | 171 |
p = Provisional
Changes in the size of the workforce will impact on the number of fatalities in any one year. Therefore, when making any comparisons either on a year-to-year basis or between one sector and another it is important to look at rates of fatal injury per 100 000 in the workforce. The following table shows the provisional rates of fatal injury to workers in the main industrial sectors. These are expressed as the number of fatal injuries per 100 000 employees, self employed or workers, as appropriate.
| Main industry (SIC 2007) |
Agriculture | Extractive; gas and electricity supply | Manufacturing | Water supply; sewerage, waste and recycling | Construction | Services1 | All Industries |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Employees | 5.6 | # | 1.1 | 6.8 | 2.6 | 0.2 | 0.5 |
| Self employed | 10.8 | # | 1.1 | - | 2.1 | 0.3 | 1.2 |
| Workers* | 8.0 | # | 1.1 | 6.5 | 2.4 | 0.2 | 0.6 |
p = Provisional
# Rate not calculated
* The term 'workers' includes employees and the self-employed combined.
For the purposes of comparison with Table 1 the following table shows the average numbers of injuries per year for the previous five years.
| Main industry (SIC2007) |
Agriculture | Extractive; gas and electricity supply | Manufacturing | Water supply; sewerage, waste and recycling | Construction | Services1 | All Industries |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Employees | 14 (14) | 7 (6) | 30 (22) | 9 (4) | 42 (29) | 51 (29) | 153 (104) |
| Self employed | 22 (25) | - (-) | 1 (2) | - (-) | 19 (12) | 10 (4) | 52 (43) |
| Workers* | 35 (39) | 7 (6) | 31 (24) | 10 (4) | 61 (41) | 61 (33) | 205 (147) |
| Members of the public | 5 (5) | 1 (-) | 1 (-) | 3 (4) | 5 (4) | 385 (377) | 401 (390) |
| Total fatalities | 41 (44) | 8 (6) | 32 (24) | 13 (8) | 66 (45) | 446 (410) | 605 (537) |
+ Individual numbers are rounded and may not therefore sum to the subtotals or totals.
* The term 'workers' includes employees and the self-employed combined.
1 The figures for services include railway incidents reported to the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR). For member of the public figures, the yearly average of 385 becomes 68 if railway-related incidents are excluded, and the 2009/10 figure of 377 becomes 54.
The finalised count of fatal injuries to workers for 2009/10 was 147, representing a net decrease of five compared to the provisional figure of 152 released last year. Downward revisions are unusual since the finalised count generally results in a net increase (due to late reporting and the time taken to conclude some fatal investigations). In this instance, further investigation of the cases determined that four were no longer reportable incidents (and hence, out of scope for publication here). The one additional decrease was due to the employment status of the deceased person changing from worker to member of the public.
For the purposes of comparison with Table 2 the following table shows the average numbers of fatal injuries per year for the previous five years.
| Country / GOR | All Industries |
|---|---|
| England | 161 (115) |
| of which: | |
| South West | 21 (15) |
| South East | 22 (13) |
| London | 18 (9) |
| East | 16 (10) |
| East Midlands | 14 (13) |
| West Midlands | 19 (10) |
| Yorkshire | 18 (23) |
| North West | 26 (19) |
| North East | 7 (3) |
| Wales | 12 (7) |
| Scotland | 28 (22) |
| Not known | 4 (3) |
| Total | 205 (147) |
+ Individual numbers are rounded and may not therefore sum to the subtotals or totals.
For the purposes of comparison with Table 3 the following table shows the average rates of fatal injury per year for the previous five years.
| Main industry (SIC2007) |
Agriculture | Extractive; gas and electricity supply | Manufacturing | Water supply; sewerage, waste and recycling | Construction | Services | All Industries |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Employees | 6.3 (7.0) | # | 1.2 (0.9) | 6.2 (2.7) | 3.2 (2.3) | 0.2 (0.1) | 0.6 (0.4) |
| Self employed | 14.5 (14.2) | # | 0.7 (1.1) | - (-) | 2.1 (1.4) | 0.4 (0.1) | 1.3 (1.0) |
| Workers* | 9.6 (10.4) | # | 1.1 (0.9) | 6.1 (2.5) | 2.8 (1.9) | 0.2 (0.1) | 0.7 (0.5) |
* The term 'workers' includes employees and the self-employed combined.
# Rate not calculated.
Fatal injuries at work are thankfully rare events. As a consequence, basic statistical principles dictate that the annual count is highly subject to chance variation. Moreover, the effect of this chance variation can be estimated to give an indication of the amount the figure would fluctuate if the inherent dangerousness of work conditions were to stay unchanged from one year to the next. For example, it can be estimated that this year’s count of 171 could have been anywhere between 145 and 197 based on chance alone. This theoretical point is borne out at a practical level when the causal factors behind individual fatalities are examined. It is often found that an unfortunate set of chance events have occurred together with shortcomings in safety precautions.
Given the above, it is necessary to make some allowance for the play of chance when seeking to use data on fatalities to make inferences about trends in the inherent dangerousness of work conditions. The best way of doing this is to analyse data over a number of years and examine the overall trend. In this way fluctuations due to chance will be evened out.
Chart 1 shows the trend in the rate of fatal injury over the last nineteen years. It has been calculated using a smoothing methodology. This minimizes the impact on the underlying trend of short-term fluctuations due to chance variation from one year to the next. It can be seen that over the nineteen-year time period there has been a downward trend in the rate of fatal injury. Although the 2009/10 rate represented the lowest rate on record, the 2010/11 rate remains fully consistent with the continuing downward trend.
Because changes in the fatal accident rate will mainly be driven by factors that act gradually over a number of years, the smoothed line shown in Chart 1 gives the best representation of the underlying trend. Nevertheless, this approach does have an inherent drawback. If there were to be a major development that caused a step change in the fatalities rate, this would only become clearly apparent in this smoothed line after a period of several years. For this reason a second graphical representation is shown in Chart 2. This shows the trend in terms of a three year rolling average (with the current year shown by the average over the last two years). Using this approach the trend line is not smoothed to the same extent as in Chart 1. Also, because this averaging procedure simply focuses on the moving three-year time frame, it is more sensitive to the emergence of a new influence on the figures. Chart 2 is, therefore, seen as the best graphical representation for providing an early indication of a change in the trend.
The EU statistical authority, Eurostat, have made a comparison of the fatal injury rates across EU countries. This reveals that the fatal injury rate for Great Britain is consistently one of the lowest in Europe, and has been the lowest amongst the five largest EU countries for a six-year period. These data can be found on the Eurostat website. (From the ‘Data Navigation Tree’ select ‘Population and social conditions’; then ‘Health’; ‘Health and safety at work’; ‘Accidents at work’.) Whilst the Eurostat data provides a useful benchmark for the British figures it should be noted that there is a caveat. The situation is complicated by the fact that most countries routinely include fatal road traffic accidents (RTAs) during working hours in their figures. Therefore when making comparisons these RTAs need to be extracted from the data in order for figures to be compared on a like-for-like basis. This gives rise to the concern that this process removing the RTAs may not always be complete so that the data for some countries may still include some accidents of this kind.
From this year, HSE is producing statistics using Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) 2007. This replaces the previous classification that was in use (SIC 2003), and is the first major change since 1992.
HSE uses SIC to classify businesses according to their main activity, enabling us to target businesses of a particular type in our inspections and programmes, as well as to produce meaningful statistics. The classification scheme has been updated regularly since its introduction in 1948 as the mix of industry and commerce has changed. Since 1992 it has been consistent with international industry classification schemes, with the UK – through the Office of National Statistics (ONS) - being obliged to meet the requirements of European legislation.
The overall numbers of workers killed has not changed, nor has the total numbers of persons employed; it is the industrial allocation according to SIC 2007 that has changed. Some industries will be affected more than others (and dependent upon the level of detail in the statistics); apparent increases in one industry will be offset by apparent decreases in others.
All statistics produced relating to 2010/11 data onwards will use SIC 2007, including figures in this release. To allow comparison, SIC 2003 allocations from previous years have been re-coded, so that all data is presented on the new basis of SIC 2007. However, the change is classed by ONS as 'major', which may result in some discontinuities in some data series, although these will be highlighted if relevant.
Agriculture - employment under SIC 2007 (Agriculture, Forestry and Fishing) is significantly lower than under the equivalent section of SIC 2003, mainly because 'landscape gardeners' has moved to 'services' under SIC 2007. Given this employment shift of relatively lower-risk workers, the change has had the effect of increasing the rate of injury under the SIC 2007 definition of agriculture workers.
On the basis of SIC 2003, the average yearly fatality rate for agriculture workers for the period 05/06 to 09/10 would be 7.9 per 100,000; under SIC 2007 for the same period there are four fewer fatalities and a corresponding rate of 9.6.
Additionally, recent employment estimates from ONS show a 13% rise for this sector in the latest year, has had the counter-effect of reducing the rate of the latest year by a corresponding amount.
Construction - 'development and sale of real estate' has moved to this sector from 'services'. The numbers employed are relatively small compared to both sectors, and no fatalities recorded in the past six years. An effect of the change is a slight decrease in the average worker fatality rate for the period 05/06 to 09/10, from 3.0 per 100,000 under SIC 2003 to 2.8 under SIC 2007.
Water supply; sewerage, waste and recycling ('E') – there has been a very large increase in recycling since the early 1990s. This is reflected in its move from 'Manufacturing' in SIC 2003, and its brigading with other related activities in Section E, ‘Water supply, sewerage, waste management and remediation activities', under SIC 2007. Given the relatively high risk of fatal injury in this new classification, we have included 'sewerage, waste management and recycling’ as additional figures in this release.
Manufacturing - one consequence of the above change in recycling is that, under SIC 2007, there are 16 fewer fatalities classified as manufacturing for the period 05/06 to 09/10. An effect of the change is a slight decrease in the average worker fatality rate for that period, from 1.2 per 100,000 under SIC 2003 to 1.1 under SIC 2007.
Services - this sector covers a wide range of industries, although the main impact on these fatality statistics relates to the above re-allocation of ‘waste’ from services into a new sector. An effect of the change is to reduce the services fatality figure by 31 for the period 05/06 to 09/10 when comparing under SIC 2003 and SIC 2007, which combines with an overall increase in services employment due to a number of other changes. The net effect on fatality rates for that period is to reduce it, from 0.27 to 0.24 per 100,000 which, when rounded, shows the services rate reducing from 0.3 to 0.2.
A comprehensive analysis of how the changes affect data on non-fatal incidents and ill health will be provided with the main annual statistics release in the autumn. More detail can also be found on the Statistics news and developments' page.
The statistics on fatal injuries that are set out in these pages are compiled primarily from notifications made under RIDDOR (see Background section above).
Since 1 April 2006, enforcement of safety on railways has been the responsibility of ORR, and they have provided HSE with the relevant figures since that date. Prior to this date, enforcement was the responsibility of HSE’s Railways Inspectorate.
The term 'workers' describes both employees and self-employed combined. Those on a training scheme, or on work experience, are classified here as employees. References to a 'member of the public' are those persons killed as a result of an accident, which has arisen out of or in connection with work activity, although they are not 'at work' themselves. For example, some of the following member of the public fatalities may be notifiable to the enforcing authority: customers on retail premises; residents in residential care homes; passengers on trains; trespassers on railways.
Fatal diseases are outside the scope of these figures, irrespective of whether the disease is notified under RIDDOR.
The following are clarifications of the fatal injuries that are generally included or excluded in these statistics. It must be stressed that this is a generalised view and that each record of a fatal injury is considered on an individual basis. Although a particular fatal incident may fall outside the scope of these figures, the relevant health and safety enforcing authority (HSE, LA, or ORR) may still have an interest.
Fatal injuries included in the statistics are primarily those deemed to be reportable under RIDDOR. These include workers involved in road maintenance or roadside refuse collection and workers or members of the public killed on railways (including those killed as a result of suicide or trespass); plus the following:
Whilst deaths as a consequence of physical violence done to a person at work are included, there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that compliance with the reporting requirement within RIDDOR may be patchy. Because such deaths are primarily covered by other legislation, and the police have primacy in the investigation, the need to report under RIDDOR may sometimes be overlooked.
Fatal injuries excluded from the statistics are mainly those deemed non-reportable under RIDDOR. The most important exclusions are as follows:
Standard Occupational Classification 2000 ('SOC 2000'), also the responsibility of ONS, attempts to classify jobs in terms of their skill level and skill content, and is used by many other government organisations.
Rates of fatal injury produced by HSE are based on estimates produced by the ONS from the Workforce Jobs Series. When HSE finalises the provisional statistics, rates are revised using the employment data available at that particular time. Rates of fatal injury are not normally revised to incorporate subsequent revisions to employment estimates by the ONS.
In Chart 1 we have smoothed the time series for the rate of fatal injuries per 100,000 workers. This maximal smoothing of the rate series expresses a view that the underlying state of the world (in respect of the inherent dangerousness of the nation’s workplaces) changes gradually from year to year.
We have smoothed the data using non-parametric regression with P-Splines (Eilers, P.H.C. and B.D. Marx (1996) Flexible Smoothing with B-splines and Penalties. Statistical Science, 11(2):89-121). The methodology we have used can be described as least squares regression on a number of cubic splines with a penalty for roughness (on the 2nd order differences) to correct for overfitting.
HSE publishes a list of the collated picture of 'as reported' information on fatalities, including those documented in our Chief Executive’s reports. It is updated on a monthly basis. It does not purport to be a formal statistical release. Subsequent investigation may determine that some of the cases in this list are not reportable under RIDDOR, for example deaths due to natural causes. Other deaths in this list may have been caused by gas incidents in the home. In such cases these deaths will not be counted in the statistics for workplace fatal injuries detailed here.
National Statistics are produced to high professional standards set out in the National Statistics Code of Practice. They undergo regular quality assurance reviews to ensure that they meet customer needs. They are produced free from any political interference.
