New figures published by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) have revealed that over a million people are being made ill by their work, which is costing society around £14.3 billion.
Despite Britain remaining one of the safest places to work in Europe, injury and ill-health statistics released by the HSE show that an estimated 27.3 million working days were lost due to work related ill-health or injury in 2014/15.
In the same year 142 workers were killed, and there were 611,000 injuries in the workplace.
In addition, an estimated 1.2 million people who worked during the last year were suffering from an illness they believed was caused or made worse by their work, of which 0.5 million were new conditions that started during the year.
A further 0.8 million former workers (who last worked over 12 months ago) were suffering from an illness which was caused or made worse by their past work.
The figures also show that 2,538 people died from mesothelioma in 2013 and thousands more from other work-related cancers and diseases such as COPD.
“It’s encouraging that there have been improvements in injuries and ill health caused by work related activities,” commented HSE’s Chair Judith Hackitt. “But behind the statistics are people, their families, friends, work colleagues, directly affected by something that’s gone wrong, that is usually entirely preventable.”
“Nobody should lose their life or become ill simply from doing their job,” she added. “These figures show that despite the great strides and improvements made over the last 40 years since Britain’s health and safety regime was established, there is still more that can be done.”
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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