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WellbeingOccupational Health

HSE campaigns to tackle bad backs at work

by Personnel Today 1 Oct 2005
by Personnel Today 1 Oct 2005

The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) has this month launched a campaign to tackle work-related back conditions, as latest figures suggest businesses lose an estimated 4.9 million working days to back complaints.

The government’s Labour Force Survey has estimated that affected employees take an average of 19 days off work, while the charity BackCare calculated the overall cost of back pain to the NHS, business and the economy at £5bn a year.

The HSE’s Better Backs campaign is designed to offer practical tips to businesses and employees about how to avoid back-related injuries in the workplace through a ‘microsite’ on the HSE’s website.

Lord Hunt, work and pensions minister, backed the initiative. “Everyone needs to take responsibility for tackling this issue. By taking simple, sensible precautions, we can collectively work to reduce the misery of back pain,” he said.

The prevalence of work-related back problems was fairly even across the country, with about one person in every 100 affected, said the HSE.
Only the north east of England had a clearly higher rate, perhaps because of its history of coal mining and other heavy industry, it suggested.

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Go to www.hse.gov.uk




 

Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

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