Revitalising health and safety: Strategy

• Revitalising Health and Safety Strategy Statement, June 2000 [275kb]
  The RHS Strategy Statement sets out how the Government and Health and Safety Commission (HSC) will work together to revitalise health and safety. Our aim is to reduce the impact of health and safety failures by 30% over ten years. It contains the first ever targets for Great Britain's health and safety system.

What are the Revitalising Health and Safety Targets and who are they for?

The targets are for the health and safety system as a whole, not just for HSC or HSE. Everyone engaged in work, be they trade associations, employers, trades unions and workers need to think what they can do to deliver them. The Revitalising targets for the health and safety system are to:

• reduce the number of working days lost per 100,000 workers from work-related injury and ill health by 30% by 2010;
• reduce the incidence rate of fatal and major injury accidents by 10% by 2010;
• reduce the incidence rate of cases of work-related ill health by 20% by 2010;
• achieve half the improvement under each target by 2004.

Baseline year

• HSE set out its technical approach to measuring progress against the Revitalising targets in a Statistical Note published in June 2001, on the website at www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/statnote.pdf. This said that a report on progress would be prepared each autumn, comparing the latest data with those for the base year (1999 or financial year 1999/2000).
• For progress on working days lost, the baseline for this target is taken as 2000-02 because comparable data on working days lost, from self-reporting surveys, are only available since 2000/01 (for those due to workplace injuries), and 2001/02 (for those arising from work-related ill health).

How far did we get by the mid-point, 2004/05?

• Taking injuries and ill health together, since 2000-02 the estimated number of working days lost per worker has shown a statistically significant reduction, from 1.8 days to 1.5 days in 2004/05.
• The rate of fatal injury to employees rose by 30% in 2000/01 and has dropped since then. The rate of 0.7 per 100,000 employees in 2004/05 is about 0.5% less than in 1999/2000. The impact of the relatively small numbers on this target is small.
• The rate of employee major injury dropped by 2.2% in 2004/05 but shows no clear trend since 1999/2000.

• A strategy for workplace health and safety in Great Britain to 2010 and beyond
  Revitalising health and safety continues to move forward as an essential part of the Health and Safety Commission's strategy, published in February 2004. RHS themes are within its priorities and it builds on delivering the Revitalising targets.

Key facts for 2006/07

Ill health

• 2.2 million people were suffering from an illness they believed was caused or made worse by their current or past work.
• 646 000 of these were new cases in the last 12 months, equating to 2100 per 100 000 people employed in the last 12 months.
• 2037 people died of mesothelioma in 2005 (latest data), and thousands more from other occupational cancers and lung diseases.

Fatal and major injuries

• 241 workers were killed at work, a rate of 8.0 per 100 000 workers.
• 141 350 other injuries to employees were reported under RIDDOR, at a rate of 535.1 per 100 000 employees.
• 274 000 reportable injuries occurred, according to the Labour Force Survey (LFS), a rate of 1000 per 100 000 workers.

Working days lost

• 36 million days were lost overall (1.5 days per worker), 30 million due to work-related ill health and 6 million due to workplace injury.