British Occupational Hygiene Society (BOHS), the Chartered Society for Worker Health and Protection, has welcomed the latest health and safety at work statistics recently published by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
The new statistics provide an extremely useful and comprehensive illustration of work-related health and safety in the UK. Simon Festing, CEO of BOHS stated: “While some of the trends are encouraging, many of the figures remain concerningly high, clearly indicating that in terms of ensuring best practice in worker health protection, many challenges remain.”
It has been found that 1.3 million working people are suffering from a work-related illness and a combined total of 25.7 million working days were lost due to work-related ill health. It is estimated that the cost of injuries and ill health due to current working conditions is in the region of £14.9 billion.
Overall trends however, are slightly more encouraging. Since 2001, the overall rate of work-related ill health demonstrated a slight downward trend, with a broadly flat scale since 2014. Moreover, the number of working days lost per worker demonstrated a downward trend until approximately 2010/2011 with a broadly flat rate thereafter.
However, despite some of the key figures remaining flat, as opposed to showing an actual increase, there is clearly still cause for concern that the overall human costs of work-related ill health remain too high, further underlining an evident need for the work BOHS undertakes to raise awareness of the benefits of occupational hygiene.
Simon concluded: “We can all influence significant change in attitudes to worker health protection by focusing on working together, taking responsibility and promoting the excellent messages of the HSE, along with our own – to achieve a healthy working environment for everyone.”
