HSC Press Release C058:02 - 18 December 2002
Today the Health and Safety Commission (HSC) issued its first ever progress report on the Government's 10-year health and safety targets (1999/00-2009/10) for reducing work-related fatalities, injuries, days off work and ill-health in Britain.
The report Health and Safety Targets: how are we doing? is available at www.hse.gov.uk/aboutus/reports. It covers three main targets and shows the following:
In addition, the report covers a wide range of more specific health and safety activity, including HSC's eight priority areas - major health and safety hazards, plus worst-performing industries - where improvement is most needed to meet the national improvement targets. These are: work - related stress; musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs); construction; agriculture; health services; falls from heights; workplace transport; and slips and trips.
Commenting on the report, HSC Chair Bill Callaghan said:
"This is early days in terms of establishing benchmarks and measuring progress against our 10-year targets. However, it is clear from recent figures that the biggest challenges facing us in meeting these targets lie in the field of occupational health. We have seen a big increase in the estimate of working days lost through ill-health - 32.9 million days in 2001/02, of which stress and MSDs each account for around one third of the total. We have prioritised both of these issues and have a range of initiatives under way to get to the root causes and identify methods for improvement.
He continued:
"The key to cracking work-related ill-health is partnership between employers, workers, their trade union representatives and Government. Employers must identify effective measures to prevent ill-health, and second, when it does occur, by establishing supportive, managed rehabilitation schemes to get absent employees back to work as quickly as is reasonably possible."
Turning to work-related injuries and ill-health, Mr Callaghan said:
"Nobody should feel complacent about the fact that the number of fatalities fell in 2001/02, nor should the reduction in major injuries in some priority programme areas give cause for celebration. The fact remains that the overall fatal and major injury rate has been static for a number of years. We need to secure lasting improvements across the board to break through this plateau and achieve a real step change".
Mr Callaghan concluded:
"I am particularly concerned by the increase in slips and trips - much of which is within the remit of our local authority partners. Sadly, many local authorities are not meeting their health and safety responsibilities and I consider their declining efforts to be unacceptable. Contrast this with the progress being made by some stakeholders in the construction industry, where tentative signs of improvement are beginning to show.
With continued hard work and commitment, I hope these will develop into long-term positive trends. Again, progress depends upon partnership - and partnership only works when all those involved are pulling their weight."
1.On 7 June 2000, HSC Chair Bill Callaghan and Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott launched the Revitalising Health and Safety initiative. This aims to achieve, by the year 2010, the following national improvement targets: reduce the incidence of working days lost from work-related injury and ill-health by 30 per cent; reduce the incidence of people suffering from work-related ill-health by 20 per cent; and reduce the rate of fatal and major injury accidents by 10 per cent. There is an additional target of achieving half of each improvement by the year 2004. HSC has identified eight priority areas - major hazards and worst-performing sectors of industry - where improvement is most needed to meet the targets. These are: construction; agriculture; the health service; stress; musculoskeletal disorders; falls from heights; slips and trips; and work-related transport. For more information, visit the Revitalising Health and Safety web site at www.hse.gov.uk/revitalising
2. The HSC/E announced the annual health and safety statistics for 2001/02 on 10 December 2002. The highlights are available at www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/overpic.htm and the full report is at www.hse.gov.uk/statistics.
Copies of Health and Safety Targets - how are we doing? (a supplement to the HSC Annual Report and HSC/E Accounts 2001/02), MISC489, will be available free from early January from HSE Books.
All enquiries from journalists should be directed to the HSE Press Office
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