Following on from the annual workplace fatality statistics published by the HSE in July which showed that falls from height sadly remained the biggest cause of workplace fatalities, Britain’s national regulator for workplace health and safety last month published their full annual workplace statistics for 2020/21.
Unlike previous years, this year’s figures had some new data as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic and the impact it has had on workplace health. Coinciding with Britain’s first national lockdown, the report includes data relating to those workers who self-reported catching Covid at work (93,000), with half of these being workers in the health and social work sector.
Other key data reported by the HSE shows that 1.7 million workers reported work related illness in 2020/21 and of these, 800,000 were stress, anxiety or depression related. The statistics also show that 645,000 workers reported that they felt Covid had caused their work-related illness or made it worse – for example due to changes in working conditions because of the pandemic.
And in addition to the data for the total number of workers killed (142), the report goes on to show that 441,000 workers sustained an injury at work – largely flat year on year.
12,000 of the 13,000 total annual deaths estimated to be linked to past exposures at work related to occupational lung diseases.
The number of health and safety breaches that the HSE prosecuted and were convicted was down to 185 (compared to 325 in 2019/20). However, it is likely that the disruption Covid caused to the court system was a factor in these numbers.
MRS Training & Rescue created a dynamic infographic for some of the key statistics announced and these are available to view here.
