UK injury rate highlights problems in worker safety
processing plants, the sector's injury rate remains twice that of
the construction industry.
In a recent bulletin the UK's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found that in the ten-year period to March 2006 there were 41 deaths and 98,700 injuries in the food and drink industry. The HSE's concerns over some worrying trends, including an increase in the number of injuries from slips and trips, could result in further measures to improve worker safety. A programme to reduce injuries in the sector resulted in the injury rate dropping by about a third since it started in 1990. However, a quarter of all manufacturing injuries still occur in the food industry, the HSE reported. Research by the HSE shows that the main causes of injury, in order, are slips, trips and falls on the same level of work, musculoskeletal injury due to handing loads, falls from height, workplace transport, being struck by something such as sharp knives or falling objects, and machinery. Major injuries from slips and trips have increased by 9 per cent in the last year, the HSE reported. There was an overall reduction in major injuries from other causes such as machinery, handling and falls from height. "This reverses the trend of earlier years which showed major injuries from slips and trips declining," the HSE stated. "When we think of food and safety we very much concern ourselves with the quality, hygiene and health aspects of the food itself and less on the safety implications of those working in the industry." HSE said industry needs to raise the profile of basic health and safety issues and equally concern itself with its employees. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 place specific duties on employers to secure the health, safety and welfare of all employees "so far as is reasonably practicable" and to assess the risks to employees. "Companies should look again at their slips and trips prevention risk assessments, identify what factors cause slips and trips and match practical control measures to these factors," HSE stated in a newsletter. The regulator suggested companies need to improve their communication of "cultural issues" amongst the staff on housekeeping and spill control procedures. The injury rate per number of employees for the food and drink industry is actually twice that of the construction sector, the HSE stated. In the 2005/2006 period four workers have died in the food and drink sector and 7,296 have been injured. The injury rate is at 263.8 per 100,000 workers, compared to 310 in the construction sector. In Great Britain 212 workers were killed at work, a rate of 0.7 per 100,000 workers over the period. Another 146,076 suffered injuries in the workplace, at a rate of 562.4 per 100,000 employees. As a result six million days of work were lost overall due to injury.
