Food manufacturing tops industry injury league

HSE reported overall improvements in Britain's health and safety performance. HSE noted a significant reduction in the number of workers killed and seriously injured at work, including those in the manufacturing industry. The number and incidence of fatal injuries in Great Britain fell significantly as did the number and incidence of major injuries. The British Safety Council welcomed the report. Council chief executive Alex Botha said the number of deaths in British workplaces had halved over the last 20 years – 148 workers killed in 2012/13 compared to nearly 300 in 1993/94 – but picked out the agriculture, construction and waste re-cycling sectors as being responsible for too many unnecessary deaths. In 2012/13 manufacturing accounted for about 10% of the British workforce, but for almost one in five fatalities to employees and reported injuries to employees. However, there had been reductions in injury and ill health rates over the past decade. The latest results in manufacturing show -There were 20 fatal injuries to workers compared to an average of 28 in the previous five years – about a third (36%) of the number 20 years ago. -There were 13 713 reported non-fatal injuries to employees and an estimated 72 thousand cases of all self-reported injuries. -About 13% of reported major injuries and 11% of over seven-day injuries involved contact with moving machinery; -Food manufacture had the highest number of major injuries, with a rate of reported injury almost twice that of manufacturing as a whole -About two thousand occupational cancer deaths each year resulted from past exposures in the manufacturing sector -An estimated 3.1 million working days were lost in 2011/12, 2.3 million due to ill health and 787 thousand due to injury, making a total of 1.2 days lost per worker.