Reminder for employers after five workers killed in the North East

Date:

27 December 2012

(Statistics available for local authority areas - see Notes to editors)

Employers are being urged to focus on real risk after five workers lost their lives while at work in the North East last year and more than 1,000 suffered a major injury.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has asked business to rethink workplace safety provisions in the New Year after the number of deaths in Great Britain as a whole failed to show a significant fall in 2011/12.

A total of 173 workers were killed at work in Great Britain last year, compared to 175 worker deaths during 2010/11. More than 23,000 workers also suffered a major injury.

The five deaths and 1,055 major injuries in the North East last year compare to five deaths and 1,242 major injuries in 2010/11. Another 3,887 North East workers suffered injuries which required at least three days off work in 2011/12, compared to 4,096 in 2010/11.

The latest provisional figures show that nationwide, on average, six in every million workers were killed while at work between April 2011 and March 2012.

High-risk industries include construction, which had 49 deaths last year, agriculture with 33 deaths, manufacturing with 31 deaths and waste and recycling with 5 deaths - making up more than half of all workplace deaths in Great Britain during 2011/12.

Urging employers to make the safety of workers their top priority for 2013, David Snowball, HSE's Director for Scotland & Northern England, said:

"Each year, instead of enjoying the occasion, families of workers in the North East who failed to come home from work spend Christmas and the New Year thinking of the loved ones who are not there to enjoy it with them.

“Hundreds of other workers who have had their lives changed by major injury will be experiencing difficulties of their own.

"Health and safety in the workplace needs to be taken seriously. I hope that in 2013 employers will tackle the real rather than the trivial dangers that workers face and not mire themselves in pointless paperwork so we can reduce the number of workplace deaths and major injury.”

Information on tackling health and safety dangers in workplaces is available on HSE's website at www.hse.gov.uk

Notes to editors

1. The Health and Safety Executive is Britain's national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health. It does so through research, information and advice; promoting training; new or revised regulations and codes of practice; and working with local authority partners by inspection, investigation and enforcement. www.hse.gov.uk
2. The following table lists the numbers of deaths and injuries across the North East during 2011/12 and 2010/11. Three-day injuries are injuries where workers had to take three or more days off work to recover.

   	Fatal injuries		Major injuries		Over 3 day injuries
   	10/11	11/12	10/11	11/12	10/11	11/12
   North East	5	5	1 242	1 055	4 096	3 887
   Cleveland	-	1	259	239	793	772
   Hartlepool	-	-	51	46	115	125
   Middlesbrough	-	-	76	53	211	204
   Redcar & Cleveland	-	-	55	57	191	188
   Stockton-on-Tees	-	1	77	83	276	255
   County Durham	2	1	298	230	1 006	1 007
   County Durham	2	1	234	191	837	836
   Darlington	-	-	64	39	169	171
   Northumberland	2	2	152	128	403	389
   Tyne & Wear	1	1	533	458	1 894	1 719
   Gateshead	-	-	109	90	386	374
   Newcastle-upon-Tyne	-	-	168	147	588	528
   North Tyneside	-	-	63	44	232	205
   South Tyneside	-	-	48	44	175	160
   Sunderland	1	1	145	133	513	452

3. A list of the deaths reported to HSE during 2011/12 is available at http://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/fatalities/2011-12.htm The information is updated on a monthly basis, and does not purport to be a formal statistical release. Subsequent investigation may determine that some are not reportable as workplace deaths, for example deaths due to natural causes.
4. Further information on workplace statistics can be found at www.hse.gov.uk/statistics
5. Based on available data (2007), Britain has the lowest rate of fatal injuries to workers among the five leading industrial nations in Europe - Great Britain, Germany, France, Spain and Italy.
6. The reporting of health and safety incidents at work is a statutory requirement, set out under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR). A reportable incident includes: a death or major injury; any accident which does not result in major injury, but the injured person still has to take three or more days off their normal work to recover; a work related disease; a member of the public being injured as a result of work related activity and taken to hospital for treatment; or a dangerous occurrence, which does not result in a serious injury, but could have done.
7. The figures for 2011/12 are provisional. They will be finalised in June 2013 following any necessary adjustments arising from investigations, in which new facts can emerge about whether the accident was work-related. 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.

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Issued on behalf of the Health and Safety Executive by the Regional News Network