Workplace fatal injuries for 2007/08 - technical notes

Overview

Unless otherwise stated, each reporting year covers the period 1 April to 31 March. Fatal injuries include deaths up to a year after the date of the accident and therefore the statistics for the year 2007/08 are provisional and will be finalised next year. Provisional figures are denoted by 'p', and changes each year due to finalisation are usually relatively small. These changes reflect updates to the coded details of records should more accurate information subsequently become available, often as a result of ongoing investigations. Rates of fatal injury are expressed per 100 000 employees, self-employed or workers as appropriate. The term ‘workers’ describes both employees and self-employed combined. Those on a training scheme, or on work experience, are classified here as employees. References to a ‘member of the public’ are those persons killed as a result of an accident, which has arisen out of or in connection with work activity, although they are not ‘at work’ themselves. For example, some of the following member of the public fatalities may be notifiable to the enforcing authority: customers on retail premises; residents in residential care homes; passengers on trains; trespassers on railways.

Reporting requirements

Statistics of fatal injuries given in these pages are compiled primarily from notifications made to the enforcing authorities in Great Britain, namely HSE, local authorities (LAs) and the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR). These notifications are made under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR 95), which came into effect on 1 April 1996.

Since 1 April 2006, enforcement of safety on railways has been the responsibility of ORR, and they have provided HSE with the relevant figures since that date. Prior to this date, enforcement was the responsibility of HSE’s Railways Inspectorate.  More information on these arrangements can be found at http://www.hse.gov.uk/railways/index.htm. ORR publish detailed railways-specific safety statistics, which can be found at http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/nav.1210.

Fatal diseases are outside the scope of these figures, irrespective of whether the disease is notified under RIDDOR.

Although each fatal injury is considered on an individual basis, those which are generally considered non-reportable under RIDDOR are:

1. Road traffic accidents on a public highway, which involve people travelling in the course of their work. These are covered by road traffic legislation;
2. Accidents reportable under separate merchant shipping, civil aviation and air navigation legislation;
3. Accidents to members of the armed forces;
4. Accidents to the self-employed arising out of accidents at premises which the injured person either owns or occupies. For example, if a self-employed washing machine engineer was electrocuted while doing paid repairs at a private house, (but see 1 below).

Fatal injuries included in these figures.

The following are clarifications of the fatal injuries that are generally included or excluded in these statistics. It must be stressed that each fatal injury is considered on an individual basis of the particular facts, but generalised here for convenience. Although a particular fatal incident may fall outside the scope of these figures, the relevant health and safety enforcing authority (HSE, LA, or ORR) may still have an interest.

Fatal injuries generally included in the statistics:

Those primarily deemed to be reportable under RIDDOR. These include workers or members of the public killed on railways (including those killed as a result of suicide or trespass); those killed involving a vehicle operating on private land; road maintenance and roadside refuse collection; workers killed in the course of their work as a result of violence; plus the following:

1. Injuries to the self-employed, where they are in control of the work or premises (these are technically non-reportable).
2. Volunteer workers. There are very few such workers killed, although classified here as ‘employees’.

Fatal injuries generally excluded from the statistics are those deemed non-reportable under RIDDOR:

1. A person at work, which involves a moving vehicle on a public highway (a ‘road traffic accident’). Such incidents are enforced by the police and reported by the Department for Transport. Those killed whilst commuting (travelling from home to work, and vice versa) are also excluded.
2. A person at work, whilst travelling by air or sea. These incidents are the responsibility of the Air Accident Investigation Bureau and Marine Accident Investigation Bureau, and reported accordingly.
3. Fatal injuries at work due to ‘natural causes’, usually heart attacks or strokes, unless brought on by trauma due to the accident.
4. Suicide (although those occurring to members of the public on railways are specifically included under RIDDOR).
5. Where the work activity is most likely considered to be illegal.

Industry and occupation classifications, and employment estimates.

This has been revised several times since first introduced in 1948. The latest version, SIC 2003, made minor revisions to SIC 1992. Standard Occupational Classification 2000 (‘SOC 2000’), also the responsibility of ONS, attempts to classify jobs in terms of their skill level and skill content, and is used by many other government organisations. 

Rates of fatal injury for employees produced by HSE are based on employment estimates produced by ONS. The Short Term Employment Survey is used to obtain top-level employment data and the Annual Business Inquiry has been used to obtain more detailed SIC 92/2003 four-digit employment data since 2000/01; previously this was taken from the Annual Employment Survey. Such estimates are normally subject to a number of revisions based on information from the Annual Employment Survey. When HSE finalises the provisional statistics, rates are revised using the employment data available at that particular time. Rates of fatal injury are not normally revised to incorporate subsequent revisions to employment estimates by the ONS.

Rates of fatal injury for the self-employed are based on employment estimates from the Labour Force Survey (LFS), produced by ONS. In 2003/04, estimates of the self-employed were revised by ONS for two reasons: a re-weighting of pre-2003/04 data as a consequence of the 2001 Census results; and a shift between employees and self-employed, as a result of the introduction of SOC 2000 (occupation coding framework).  The net result is to increase the estimates of the self-employed slightly from 2003/04 onwards, although the overall pattern in injury rates for the self-employed and workers remain unchanged.

A National Statistics release

The fatal injuries figures representing the full-year are National Statistics.

National Statistics are produced to high professional standards set out in the National Statistics Code of Practice. They undergo regular quality assurance reviews to ensure that they meet customer needs. They are produced free from any political interference.