Latest HSE Stats Show Work Still to be Done in Workplace Health & Safety

November 23rd, 2020

Last updated: May 31st, 2023

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) released their latest figures in July for Health and Safety at Work during 2019 and 2020, which highlighted a number of key statistics relevant to the HVAC industry and other sectors of work undertaken by Robinsons Facilities Services.

A standout figure from the report is that there were 111 workers fatally injured at work between April 2019 and March 2020. This equates to a rate of 0.34 deaths per 100,000 employees, and represents a fall of 38 deaths on the previous year, which is actually the lowest figure for a year on record.

Whilst a reducing figure is of course welcome news, there is still significant work to be done as 111 fatalities remains too high a figure in any circumstances. Across industry sectors there were 40 fatalities in construction alone, which highlights the fact that a series of measures still need to be implemented to address this.

2019/20 Health and Safety at Work Statistics

Other standout figures in the report include:

• 6 million cases of work-related ill health
• 7million workers suffered a non-fatal workplace injury
• 8 million working days were lost to non-fatal workplace injuries
• 8 million cases of work-related stress
• 12,000 lung disease deaths were linked to a past exposure at work
• 2446 mesothelioma deaths – a disease linked to past exposure to asbestos at work

The annual cost of injuries in the workplace to the UK economy was calculated as £5.6 billion, which is an astonishing cost given the strict health and safety regulations in place, and particularly when we consider ourselves at Robinsons Facilities Services as being pretty typical of how the HVAC sector as a whole, carries out health monitoring and implements many health and safety measures in its own workplace and on sites it operates on.

Non-fatal injuries are still considered to be very high, and still centre around ‘traditional’ hazards such as slips, trips and falls (29%), handling, lifting and carrying (19%), struck by a moving object (11%), acts of violence (9%) and falling from a height (8%). This highlights another area which can be worked on to find improvement.

How We Can Help You Improve Your Health and Safety at Work Performance

Robinsons Facilities Services have strict procedures and systems of work which we carry with us and adapt to all sites that we work on, whatever the industry sector and whatever the size of the organisation. We also comply with site-specific health and safety requirements that clients have in place and request that we follow. We can also help you implement a comprehensive range of health and safety procedures relating to fire safety, electrical safety, gas safety and other issues such as legionella and asbestos control. We can help you continue the national trend in improving health and safety at work figures.

HVAC systems are designed to help with creating safe working environments and controlling exposure to dust and harmful substances. We can also help with health monitoring in terms of monitoring exposure to dust, legionella and asbestos to help improve your own health and safety statistics and those of the HVAC industry and the nation as a whole.

Contact Robinsons Facilities Services and we can work with you to design and implement robust systems and control measures, and help to continue the year-on-year improvement of the UK’s health and safety record.