Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Statistics
In 1974 there were 336 701 accidents reported that ‘involved more than three days absence from work’, according to the 1975 Health and Safety Statistics volume. This figure covers the same production and service industries as the figure for fatal injuries. They suffer from under-reporting as today's figures do but to an unknown extent. A direct comparison of the same industries in the provisional year 2006/07 – excluding health, education and public administration – shows 101 729 reported non-fatal injuries (major injury plus over-3-day injury), a fall of 70% from figures in 1974. A comparison of reported non-fatal injuries to employees in 1974 with the 141 350 across all industries in 2006/07 shows a fall of 58%.
However, since 1974 there have been three changes of reporting regulations (Factories Act, NADOR and RIDDOR). Each has changed the definitions of reportable non-fatal injury. With the introduction of over-3-day injuries under RIDDOR in 1986/87 it is also useful to make comparison from the start of RIDDOR and now. In 1986/87 there were 179 706 non-fatal injuries in all industries, in 2006/07 this figure was 141 350, a reduction across the period of 21%. The rate of non-fatal injuries fell by 38%, from 860.2 in 1986/87 to 535.2 in 2006/07.
The requirement to report injuries to members of the public was introduced under the Notification of Accidents and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (NADOR) 1980. Under NADOR the number of reported non-fatal injuries to members of the public steadily increased, from 5609 in 1981 to 6939 in 1985.
The introduction of the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1985 (RIDDOR 85) revised the reporting requirements for injuries to members of the public, which led to an increase in the number of injuries reported. In 1986/87 there were 14 575 non-fatal injuries to members of the public, injuries then steadily decreased to their lowest level under RIDDOR 85 to 9981 in 1990/91. From 1991/92 there was an upward trend to 13 234 non-fatal injuries in 1995/96, the last year that reports were made under RIDDOR 85 and the second highest number of reports since 1986/87.
In 1996/97 reporting requirements were further revised under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR 95), again increasing the number of reports when 35 694 members of the public were injured. Numbers generally decreased until 2003/04; since then the number of reports has risen steadily, with 17 483 injuries reported in the provisional year 2006/07.
Further detail on non-fatal injuries within main industries in Great Britain from 1981 – 2006/07p is available in the following tables.
