Government sets targets to cut work-related deaths, accidents and illness in biggest health and safety shake-up for 25 years
Keywords Health and safety, Work-related injuries, Occupational health
For the first time ever, the Government and Health and Safety Commission(HSC) has announced targets for the nation to reduce work-related deaths ill-health and injury in the UK. Accidents and ill-health among the workforce cost the UK economy up to £18 billion a year.
The specific targets are to:
reduce the number of working days lost from work-related injury and ill-health by 30 per cent by the year 2010 (a decrease of 7.5 million working days on current estimates);
reduce the incidence of people suffering from work-related ill-health by 20 per cent by the year 2010 (80,000 fewer new cases on current estimates);
reduce the rate of fatal and major injury accidents by 10 per cent by the year 2010 (3,000 fewer cases on current figures); and
achieve half of each improvement by the year 2004.
To do this, the Government and HSC have introduced a ten-point strategy supported by a 44-point action plan which will provide incentives and practical support to employers, together with a range of measures to tackle employers who do not meet their health and safety responsibilities.
The strategy highlights that the health and safety system must promote a better working environment as well as prevent harm. It also: focuses on occupational health as a priority; the need to motivate all employers,particularly small firms, to improve their health and safety performance; the need for Government to lead by example; the importance of education at all levels for improving health and safety and the role of effective design in preventing risk.
The action plan will include:
An occupational health strategy to combat the many work-related illnesses which occur in the modern workplace. This will promote best practice and look at ways of helping people to return to work after an illness.
Tougher penalties to deter health and safety offences, including:imprisonment to be available for most health and safety crimes; and the increased maximum fine available in the lower court – £20,000 –to be extended to most health and safety offences.
An examination of new innovative penalties such as fines linked to turnover,prohibition of bonuses and suspension of managers without pay.
A director's code of practice, which will make a named person responsible for health and safety matters within every company.
New help for small businesses, including: piloting a health and safety grant; providing better targeted support through the Small Business Service; and the provision of comprehensive – including sector-specific – health and safety guidance for small firms.
Abolition of Crown Immunity as part of a package of major reforms to improve health and safety performance and accountability in the public sector.
Explore, with the insurance industry, incentives to reward good health and safety performers at the expense of those companies with poor health and safety records.
In addition, the action plan will include: a new one-stop call centre for employers to report accidents to the HSE; a "ready reckoner" to help business identify how much money they can save by improving their health and safety record; and a legislative database for online guidance on health and safety legislation.
Success will depend on effective partnerships between the various stakeholders – employers, employees and their representatives – and in particular developing the role of safety representatives in the workplace.
Commenting on the targets, HSC chairman Bill Callaghan, said: "Health and safety at work should be a core requirement of business activity, not an inconvenient 'add-on'. As far as I am concerned, those who cannot manage health and safety, cannot manage. We need to create a positive health and safety culture which sees business go beyond doing the statutory minimum.
"Government, employers and workers need to move forward together in order to meet the challenges of the future. I want to see a revitalised health and safety system as relevant to the call centre as it is to the construction site."
Mr Callaghan explained: "The HSC, HSE and local authorities will do all they can to help improve health and safety at work. However, I will be looking for top-level commitment from employers, unions and others to agree and set targets for their own sectors and firms.
"In particular, I would like to see an increasing role for safety representatives. As well as contributing significantly to improving health and safety, they also encourage the kind of partnership approach we are looking for."
Commenting on small firms, Mr Callaghan said: "I appreciate the specific difficulties that small firms face, which is why the action plan includes a comprehensive range of measures to help them."
Mr Callaghan concluded by warning that he would have no sympathy for employers who choose to ignore their health and safety responsibilities:
"Work-related illness and injury cost this country up to£18billion a year, while the cost in terms of human suffering cannot be measured. Unfortunately, it is the victims themselves, their families and the taxpayer who bear much of this burden. I will be giving the Government every encouragement to introduce measures which crack down hard on offending employers."
Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, said: "I want businesses to raise their game and Bill Callaghan and I are writing to stakeholders in the health and safety business with a strong message – that they must never ignore their responsibilities and the rights of their workers. Health and safety is a priority issue for those at the top of all organisations and they must be prepared to face the consequences of ignoring the law; in future that could well mean prison."
Copies of Revitalising Health and Safety Strategy Statement are available from DETR Free Literature, PO Box 236, Wetherby, West Yorkshire LS23 7NB. Tel: +44 (0)870 1226236 or Fax: +44 (0)870 1226237.
Background
The Revitalising Health and Safety action plan was produced following a consultation exercise with stakeholders, launched by MichaeI Meacher and the then HSC Chairman, Frank Davies, in July 1999.
The UK has one of the best health and safety records in the world, but improvements have levelled off in recent years. A number of changes have taken place in the workplace since the Health and Safety at Work Act was introduced in 1974. The Government and HSC decided there was now a need to take a fresh look at health and safety policy in general to give it fresh impetus and gain further improvements.
Up to 25 million working days are lost every year as a result of work-related accidents and ill-health. Around two million people suffer from work-related ill-health, of which half a million suffer from stress. Over one million workers are injured every year.
In 1998/1999 there were almost 29,000 major injuries to workers, with 131,000 workers taking more than three days off as a result of work-related injury.
The Health and Safety Commission oversees the work of the Health and Safety Executive which, in association with local authorities, enforces health and safety at work standards in the UK.
24 facts about health and safety
- 1.
Health and safety failures cost the UK up to £18 billion each year.
- 2.
400 people every year are still killed in accidents caused by work activities.
- 3.
Around 25 million working days are lost every year as a result of work-related accidents and ill-health.
- 4.
Over 25,000 people are forced to give up work every year as a result of work-related accidents and ill-health.
- 5.
Around two million people – 5 per cent of the population – suffer from ill-health caused by work.
- 6.
Over one million workers get injured every year.
- 7.
Around half a million people suffer from stress caused by their work.
- 8.
The most common forms of work-related ill-health are back problems and other aches and pains, with 1.2 million people affected every year, causing almost ten million working days to be lost.
- 9.
In 1998/1999, there were almost 29,000 major injuries to workers.
- 10.
In the same period, another 131,000 workers had to take more than three days off work as a result of a work-related injury.
- 11.
More than 24,000 members of the public were injured as the result of a work activity.
- 12.
Every year, around 3,000 people die as a result of past exposure to asbestos.
- 13.
Falls from a height are the most common cause of death to employees.
- 14.
Workers in small manufacturing firms are more than twice as likely to be killed at work than workers in larger firms in the same sector.
- 15.
Self-employed people are twice as likely to be killed at work as employees.
- 16.
Workplaces with safety representatives have half the rate of accidents of workplaces that do not have safety representatives.
- 17.
The fatal injury rate for employees in the UK is a quarter of what it was in 1971.
- 18.
The UK has a lower rate of deaths to workers than the USA or any other European country: the rate is 1.7 per 100,000 workers in the UK; 3.2 in the USA and an average of 3.9 across Europe.
- 19.
The rate of deaths per 100,000 workers is 3.7 per cent in Germany and 4.3 per cent in France.
- 20.
The cost of work-related accidents and ill-health to employers equals£140-£300 for each worker employed.
- 21.
The cost of work-related accidents and illness to employees is estimated at between £3.5 billion and £7.3 billion a year.
- 22.
Over £180 million could be saved in work-related illness costs in the construction industry alone.
- 23.
Around one in five workers have been physically attacked or threatened by a member of the public.
- 24.
Some insurers, particularly in higher hazard sectors, offer discounts of up to 20 per cent if employers can demonstrate good health and safety arrangements.
Public enquiries: call HSE's InfoLine. Tel: 08701 545500, or write to HSE Information Centre, Broad Lane, Sheffield, S3 7HQ. HSE information and press releases can be accessed on the Internet http://www.open.gov.uk/hse/press/press.htm
