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Health and safetyWellbeing

Work-related illness and injury still unacceptably high

by Nic Paton 2 Jan 2005
by Nic Paton 2 Jan 2005

The number of people suffering from work-related ill-health has not changed in the past year, despite employers giving the issue a higher priority.

Statistics from the Health and Safety Executive show that about 2,200,000 people suffered from ill-health that they considered to be work-related in 2003-04, about 100,000 fewer than reported in 2001-02.

The self-reported work-related illness survey also said that around three quarters of cases of work-related illness were musculoskeletal disorders or stress, although lung diseases, such as asthma, contact dermatitis and other skin disorders, vibration or noise-related disorders and diarrhoel diseases were also commonplace.

About 6,000 people die each year from cancer because of past risk-related exposure at work, with 1,900 deaths in 2002 from mesothelioma.
Ill-health prevalence rates were highest in the north-east of England, Wales, Yorkshire and Humberside, the HSE found.

The data showed a fall in the incidence of musculoskeletal disorders and a levelling off of earlier rises in work-related stress.

The estimated number of cases of asthma and dermatitis fell, too, although asthma-related cancers rose.

There were 235 fatal injuries to workers in 2003-04, up 4 per cent on 2002-03 (227). Around half of these occurred in construction and agriculture, forestry and fishing.

The number of reported major injuries was up 9 per cent, with service industries, notably public administration, the most dangerous, and the majority caused by slipping and tripping, said the HSE.

The number of reported over-three-day injuries increased by 0.7 per cent to 129,143 of which two-fifths were caused by handling, lifting and carrying.

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Health and safety commission chairman Bill Callaghan said occupational injuries and ill-health were still at “unacceptably high levels”.

www.hse.gov.uk


Nic Paton

Nic Paton is consultant editor at Personnel Today. One of the country's foremost workplace health journalists, Nic has written for Personnel Today and Occupational Health & Wellbeing since 2001, and edited the magazine from 2018.

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