Businesses are being urged to review their health and safety procedures in a new campaign by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
According to figures from the group, someone breaks or fractures a bone at work every 25 minutes, with almost 46,000 people being injured last year.
They added that each week, someone dies from a slip, trip or fall at work, with the financial cost alone ‘crippling’ many businesses.
Payouts to injured workers cost the construction industry £139m last year, while the cost to the food retail and manufacturing industries was around £50m. The catering and hospitality industry came in third, at £31m a year.
A spokesman for the HSE’s ‘Shattered Lives’ campaign, which is urging businesses to change their attitudes to health and safety at work, said that while slips, trips and falls can be viewed as being minor, funny accidents, the effects are not. “It can lead to major injuries, and a lifetime of disability or time off work, and in worst cases, fatalities.”
Dr Elizabeth Gibby, head of the injuries reduction programme at HSE, added that injuries at work are costing nearly £811m a year.
“What these figures don’t reflect is the extent to which these injuries affect individual workers and their families.
“Slips, trips and falls also have a shattering effect on businesses through costs such as employee absence, sick pay and reduced productivity. Irrespective of the size of the business and the job that you do, it could happen to you,” she said.
© Crimson Business
