Accidents at work - Did you know?
Did you know?
1 million people who worked during 2013 were suffering from an illness (long-standing as well as new cases) they believed was caused or made worse by their current or past work. 0.5 million of these were new conditions which started during the year. (This data refers to 2011/12)
148 workers were killed at work, a rate of 0.5 fatalities per 100000 workers.
782222 other injuries to employees were reported under RIDDOR, a rate of 311.6 per 100000 employees.
27 million days were lost overall in 2011/12 due to work-related ill health or injury (17 days per case) 22.7 million due to work-related ill health and 4.3 million due to workplace injury.
As a responsible employers what can we do?
Look at any potential risks within your organisation, specifically on any tasks that could cause significant harm and injury, this may include areas such as:
- Slip trips and falls
- Access and egress
- Potential manual handling injuries
- The likelihood of Fire
- Chemical exposure
- Electrical hazards
- Stress and violence
- Implement a plan to help employees avoid injury for each risk set, and work together with the workforce to introduce simple practical measures that reduces the likelihood of these risks becoming a reality.
- Encourage the reporting of near misses, so these can be investigated before becoming major occurrences, as we know we should never ignore a near miss it is our chance to learn and be proactive.
- Provide effective training to employees at induction stage and any employees that need to be reminded of the basic tools with regards to managing health and safety in the workplace.
- If an accident does happen try to avoid the blame culture to creep in, instead ask everyone involved to be honest in their findings and as an employer, do not punish employee who admits they could have done more to prevent the accident.
- Monitor regularly the workplace for potential dangers. Once again involve the workforce, maybe through appointing health and safety representatives to undertake inspections.
- Ensure that employees follow procedures, if they don’t then ask why as there could be many logical explanations for this.
One life lost is one too many, be proactive not reactive when it’s just too late.