NEW WEBSITE PROMOTES SAFETY IN HEALTH SERVICES

HSE press release: E144:03 - 28 July 2003

A new website covering the health services - both the NHS and the independent sector - has been launched by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) today.

Employers, safety representatives, health professionals and members of the public will find guidance on health and safety in their sector about how HSE, as the independent regulator for health and safety, does its job. Anyone who would like to access the site can do so at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/healthservices

Visitors can also view video clips, read case studies, download the 2003/4 programme of work and gain access to guidance on many of the current issues and valuable links to many other useful websites.

The Health Services is one of the eight Priority Programmes set by the Health and Safety Commission and Priority Programme Manager Murray Devine said: "I am delighted to launch HSE's new health services pages. I want this site to become our prime source of easy to understand and up-to-date information on health and safety in this large and important sector.

"The website's contents will be regularly updated, starting with new information on workplace violence and pages devoted to the independent sector. With that in mind, I would welcome feedback from those who visit the pages - workers, patients and others who are involved or interested in improving safety standards."

Notes to editors

1. About 1.1 million people are employed in the NHS in England, Wales and Scotland. Some of the main occupations (especially nurses and ambulance crews) have extremely high rates of accidents and sickness absence resulting from: manual handling (mainly of patients); slips and trips; violence; and stress. The private sector (consisting of a few major companies and an large number of small enterprises) employs around 0.7 million people.

2. In the 5 year period 1996/7-2000/1, over 61,100 healthcare workers suffered an injury reportable to HSE under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulation (RIDDOR) 1995 (an average of 12,233 per year). There were 2 fatalities in this period, and the majority of injuries (54,337) fell into the over 3-day category. More than 50% of these involved handling/sprains.

3. The 1995 Self-reported Work-related Illness (SWI) Survey, estimated 193,000 people who had worked in the health services sector (which relates to the wider grouping health and social work) in the last 12 months reported a health problem caused by their work, resulting in an estimated 2.8 million days off work.

4. SWI 95 also identified that nurses have one of the highest rates of musculoskeletal disorders (an estimated rate of 5.8% compared to the average of 2.5%). Nurses also reported high rates of stress, depression or anxiety (an estimated rate of 2.2% compared to the average of 0.7%).

5. The health services sector became a priority programme in its own right under the HSC Strategic Plan 2001/4. The HSC's Strategic Plan 2001-2004, published in October 2001, set out the work and activities planned for the next three years to deliver HSE's agreed targets and outcomes. These are designed to help achieve the overarching national targets set for 2010 in the Revitalising Health and Safety Strategy Statement (RHS), as well as those published in Securing Health Together (SH2).

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