Accidental deaths in the UK have reached an all-time high and are now the second biggest killer of people aged under 40, research has suggested.
However, the good news is that the study from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) also concluded people are now significantly safer at work than they are at home.
Less positively, whether accidents happen inside or outside work, across the UK in 2022/23, 7.7 million working days were lost by those who were unable to work after an accident as they’d been admitted to hospital, or by their carers who took time off work to be with them, RoSPA also highlighted.
The RoSPA report, Safer Lives, Stronger Nation, argued the rate of accidental deaths in the UK has increased by 42% in the last decade. Accidents now take over 20,000 lives each year, which is more than the capacity of London’s O2 arena.
As well as the tragic human loss, preventable accidents cost the UK £12bn every year because of lost working days and medical care, RoSPA has said.
Accidental deaths have risen in England (up 40%), Scotland (up 57%), Wales (up 41%) and Northern Ireland (up 56%) since 2013.
Health and safety
Health and Safety at Work Act marks 50th year
Workers want health and safety laws updated to reflect changing workplace
Third of hospitality workers regularly break health and safety rules
Accidents are the second biggest killer of people under 40 (after intentional injuries) and the most common cause of preventable death in children under 15, it also found.
In England alone, accident-related hospital admissions for serious injuries have risen by 48% in the last two decades.
More than 740,000 people were admitted to hospital because of an accident in England in 2022/23, almost the size of the population of Leeds, rising to more than 870,000 people across the UK.
Almost half (46%) of all accidental deaths (more than 9,700 people) in 2022 resulted from falls.
More than a quarter (26%) resulted from poisonings and 7% were because of a road traffic accident or transport related. Falls also accounted for nearly two-thirds (61%) of all accident-related hospital admissions (almost 450,000 instances).
Accidents from crushing, striking, powered hand tools and machinery (known medically as ‘exposure to inanimate mechanical forces’) accounted for more than one in 10 (12%) of all accident-related hospital admissions, and 7% were because of a road traffic accident or transport related, RoSPA said.
However, the home is one of the most dangerous places to be, as more than half (55%) of all accidental deaths followed an accident at home, and a further 7% took place in other residential settings.
By comparison, people are significantly safer at work than they are at home, RoSPA also found.
In 2019, 7,751 people died after an accident at home (55% of all accidental deaths in England) while 149 people died after an accident at work (0.8% of all accidental deaths in Great Britain).
As well as personal pain and injury, accidents put a huge strain on the NHS, costing at least £6bn annually in NHS medical care – not including ambulance callouts, surgery or long-term treatment.
In England alone last year, more than 4.4 million bed days were used up to treat patients with accident-related injuries, costing the NHS an estimated £4.6bn. Across the UK, accidents led to around 5.2 million bed days, costing the NHS an estimated £5.4bn last year.
In addition, accidents resulted in around seven million A&E visits across the UK last year, costing a further £613m, bringing the total cost of accidents to the NHS to at least £6bn annually.
Accident-related injuries are also a drain on the economy and prevent people from working. The combined cost to UK businesses of this is £5.9bn, RoSPA calculated, because of lost output and indirect management costs.
Across the UK in 2022/23, as well as the 7.7 million working days lost through accident-related hospital admissions highlighted earlier, a further 21 million working days were lost by those who had to attend A&E after an accident, RoSPA found.
In total in 2022/23, accidents led to almost 29 million lost working days across the UK – 10 times more than were lost due to strikes (2.7 million lost working days) in the same year, it added.
RoSPA chief executive Becky Hickman said the society was calling for government to implement a National Accident Prevention Strategy.
“The UK is facing an accident crisis. We are all substantially more likely to suffer a serious accident today than we were 20 years ago. We must take action now to stop further preventable deaths and serious injuries – accidents are avoidable and do not need to happen,” she argued.
“Even those who have never been involved in an accident are still suffering, as increasing numbers of accidents are choking the UK economy and engulfing the NHS – taking up bed space, money, time and resources that could be directed to other serious illnesses,” Hickman added.
Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance
Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday
