Health and Safety Executive Fatality Figures
Number of fatal injuries by sector for 2009/10 in UK :
| Main industry: | Agriculture | Extractive & utility supply | Manufacturing | Construction | Services1 | All Industries |
| Employees | 17 | 6 | 22 | 29 | 35 | 109 |
| Self employed | 21 | - | 2 | 12 | 7 | 42 |
| Workers* | 38 | 6 | 24 | 41 | 42 | 151 |
| Members of the public | 7 | 1 | - | 4 | 381 | 393 |
| Total fatalities | 45 | 7 | 24 | 45 | 423 | 544 |
After the above figures were published, the Health and Safety Executive concluded that “an unfortunate set of events have occurred together with shortcomings in safety precautions”.
HSE’s latest figures revealed that 151 workers were killed in the period between 1st April 2009 and 31st March 2010. Last year the figure was 178 deaths.
Judith Hackitt, HSE chair commented upon this, saying, “Although the reduction in workplace deaths was encouraging, the fall in fatalities may have been partly due to lower activity in some sectors of the economy during the recession.
We mustn’t get complacent but instead recognise the new challenges which have developed as a result of the recession”.
Brenda Barker, general secretary of the Traders Union Congress quoted, “Politicians and the media should focus on presenting such deaths rather than talking about Health and Safety Regulations being a burden. None of these deaths are a result of over-regulation or risk aversion. In most cases they were caused by basic precautions not being taken.”
