The latest UK statistics for deaths in the workplace for the year 2008-09 show “a statistically significantly decrease”, compared with rates for the previous five years.

The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) released the figures on Wednesday (24/06/09). The report said that fatalities in the workplace were still rare, making rates subject to chance variation every year.

However there does appear to be some “levelling off”, with 180 fatal injury deaths (0.6 per 100,000 workers) in the year 2008-09, representing a 22 per cent decrease in the average annual rate of 231 deaths per year over the past five years. In 2007-08 there were 233 fatal injury deaths in the workplace.

A comparison of statistics from EU countries over the past five years shows that the UK has consistently had one of the lowest rates for fatal injuries in the workplace.

The 2008-09 figures per industry in the UK are 26 fatalities in agriculture (5.7 deaths per 100,000 workers), 53 fatalities in construction (2.4 deaths per 100,00 workers), 32 fatalities in manufacturing (1.1 deaths per 100,000 workers) and 63 fatalities in the service sector (0.3 deaths per 100,000 workers).

There were 94 fatal injuries among the public in work related incidents in 2008-09, excluding incidents related to railways.

The most recent data comparing rates in the five largest EU countries is for 2006 and shows that the UK had the lowest fatal injury rate during a five-year period.

© 5r1 Limited

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