NEW GUIDANCE FOR HEALTH SERVICES ON PREVENTING SLIPS AND TRIPS AT WORK

HSE press release E192:03 - 2 October 2003

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has today published a new Information Sheet giving advice about preventing slips and trips to workers in health services.

Slips and trips, resulting in falls, are the most common cause of major injury in this sector, amounting to some 650 instances a year. They are also the second biggest cause (after manual handling) of all injuries reported to HSE in health services, accounting for 2,300 injuries a year, nearly a fifth of the total.

The guidance describes the commonest causes of slips and trips and gives advice on how the risks may be avoided or reduced, for example, through selection of suitable flooring, appropriate cleaning regimes and good housekeeping. It provides practical and legal guidance for managers, those involved in design and maintenance of premises, workers and others with an interest in health and safety in healthcare.

The Health and Safety Commission has included both the health services sector and 'slips and trips' among eight Priority Programmes under the Revitalising Health and Safety initiative.

Murray Devine, Programme Manager for the Health Services Priority Programme welcomed the new guidance saying: "For too long, slips and trips have been seen as an inevitable part of life. There is so much that can be done to remove or reduce the risks to workers. Following the advice in this Information Sheet is a valuable first step to cutting the costs of slips, trips and falls in terms of pain and suffering, sickness absence and delivery of patient care. "

Slips and trips in the health services, Health Services Sheet 2, is available on HSE website http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/hsis2.pdf

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 a large number of small enterprises) employs around 0.7 million people.

2. In the five 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.

3. 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, as well as those published in the complementary programme, Securing Health Together.

4. 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 health services web page can do so at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/healthservices

5. Further information on slips and trips can be found on the HSE web site at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/slips/index.htm

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