Reminder for employers as new figures underline workplace dangers in Kent

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 and more than 620 others suffered a major injury while at work in Kent last year.

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 621 major injuries in Kent last year compares to four deaths and 738 major injuries in 2010/11. A further 2,144 workers suffered injuries which required at least three days off work in 2011/12, compared to 2,226 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, Dave Rothery, HSE's acting head of operations for the South East, said:

"Each year, instead of enjoying the occasion, families of workers in Kent who failed to come home from work safely spend Christmas and the New Year thinking of absent loved ones.

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

"When put into this kind of context, it is clear why health and safety in British workplaces needs to be taken seriously. I implore employers to tackle the real dangers that workers face rather than focussing on the trivial or mire themselves in pointless paperwork.

"My New Year wish is that we can reduce the number of deaths and major injury in 2013 and make the year ahead a happier one for many families."

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 Kent 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
   Kent	4	5	738	621	2 226	2 144
   Ashford	-	1	56	55	156	149
   Canterbury	-	1	57	53	199	200
   Dartford	-	-	48	35	189	201
   Dover	1	-	40	34	132	137
   Gravesham	1	1	34	31	103	120
   Maidstone	-	1	81	69	174	176
   Medway Towns	1	-	132	89	330	318
   Sevenoaks	-	-	32	29	114	91
   Shepway	1	-	41	31	105	100
   Swale	-	-	72	56	238	218
   Thanet	-	-	38	40	145	135
   Tonbridge & Malling	-	1	56	65	200	168
   Tunbridge Wells	-	-	51	34	141	131

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.

Press enquiries

Regional reporters should call the appropriate Regional News Network press office.

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