DEATHS TOTALS MUST – AND CAN - BE REDUCED SAYS HSE REGIONAL DIRECTOR

The Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE’s) North West Regional Director David Ashton is urging the region’s business community to put good health and safety practice at the top of their list of priorities as statistics show the provisional number of fatalities to workers in the region in 2006/07 has increased over the previous 12 month period.

The Health & Safety Commission (HSC) today publishes the latest detailed statistics on workplace fatal injuries in 2006/07 – Statistics of Fatal Injuries 2006/2007 which can be found on the HSE website at http://www.hse.gov.uk

The figures show that in the North West, there were 33 fatalities reported to all enforcing authorities in 2006/07, compared with 32 in the previous year. The table below provides a breakdown of incidents by sector and county in the North West. 

In addition to worker fatalities, there were also ten work-related fatalities to members of the public in the North West, nine of which were caused in the services sector.

David Ashton says many of the 33 North West worker deaths could have been prevented by simple and sensible precautions.

"It seems I repeat myself in saying that year after year the same underlying trends appear in our fatal accidents statistics – and the tragedy is that deaths such as these could be avoided.  If we could eliminate just two of the causes - falling from a height and being struck by moving or falling objects – more than half of those people would still be alive today.”

HSE inspectors repeatedly visit the scenes of the accidents and realise that in many cases they could easily have been prevented.

"I call on all businesses to act now to help stop this toll, “ continues Mr Ashton.

"It is not a matter simply for HSE to prevent. There are plenty of practical precautions including:

"Operators and people using access equipment should be trained.  Simple assessments of risk, asking everyday questions like ‘How will we clean out the gutters?’; ‘How can we get up to change those light bulbs?’; ‘Can people get up to reach the tops of our lorry loads in a safe manner?’; and ‘Have we trained everyone suitably?’ could prevent so much heartbreak.

HSE works with a number of partners to provide free advice and education to those both carrying out and managing work and we need businesses and self employed people to work with us to help arrest this increase and make the North West a safer place to work.

The increase demonstrates that neither HSE nor employers can rest on their laurels when it comes to workplace safety. There is a great deal of work to be done.”

The provisional Great Britain figure for the number of workers fatally injured in 2006/07 is 241, and corresponds to a rate of fatal injury of 0.80 per 100,000 workers.  In 2005/06 the estimated figured were 217 and 0.72 respectively; these were the lowest figures on record.

Nationally, falls from height remain the biggest cause of fatal injuries in 2006/07 with 45 deaths, followed by being struck by moving or falling object (40 deaths) and being struck by a moving vehicles (30 deaths).

The full statistical report can be viewed at www.hse.gov.uk/statistics

Source: HSE

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