You can view the latest IIRSM press releases here. You can also join us on:
LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter
01 December 2011
IIRSM member David Beamont has written an article/review of our Project Risk Management forum. To view click here.
18 November 2011
IIRSM comments on HSE injury & ill-health data
Recently HSE published data on the number of fatal injuries for 2010/11. These showed an increase of 15% from 147 to 171 over the previous year. Although this is undesirable and could give cause for concern, given the methods employed for identifying trends, this does not necessarily show a change in the underlying downward trend. To identify whether this does show a real upturn cannot be established on the basis of a single data set which could be a distortion. Where it does raise concern is that the figures are published at a time of change for the UK enforcement system.
However, figures published on Nov 2nd provide data on non-fatal injuries and ill-health where the recent downward trend has continued. The number of injuries reported under RIDDOR was 118,000 with a total of 200,000 reportable (>3 day) injuries being reported through the Labour Force Survey.
Although these figures are the ones which have grabbed the headlines IIRSM is particularly concerned over the figures relating to work place ill-health, where 22.1m working days were lost last year.
Figures relating to work-related stress show that there were 211,000 new cases reported during the period compared with 189,000 pre-existing cases. These represented a worrying loss of 10.8M working days. Other facts which emerged were that workplaces with >250 employees had the highest rate s and the rates for women were higher than those for men and that the age group most affected was between 35-54.
Encouragingly we have seen a significant reduction in cases of musculoskeletal disorders over a 10 year period with a total of 158,000 new cases for the period as against 351,000 pre-existing cases.
However, there is still considerable concern over underreporting by both employers and employees. Although opinion seems to be generally supportive of the change of RIDDOR reporting from 3 to 7 days and other changes which are being proposed, we are concerned that the issue of reporting may not improve in the short term and even were it to improve how reliably will we be able to compare year on year trends. We must consider future figures very carefully indeed.
