The costs of workplace health

Throughout the country local events took place on Saturday to commemorate Workers Memorial Day, an annual event where trade unions, safety campaigners and progressive politicians highlight workplace health and safety under the slogan 'remember the dead, fight for the living'. There has been much progress, workplace fatalities have fallen 82 per cent over the last forty years, but still remain too high at 171 per annum, while 20,000 people are still dying each year as a result of injuries or illnesses sustained directly because of their work.

The UK performs better than many countries in terms of health and safety at work, and much worse than some, it is not ranked in the top ten of 'developed countries' on managing workplace safety. Some sectors perform much better than others too; manufacturing and engineering have been on an upward curve for health and safety standards for some years, while construction remains a risky business - contributing to 50 of the last reported year's workplace fatalities. In many less developed, less regulated countries, the standards of safety at work are often completely non-existent and workplace deaths, including children, remain scandalously high.

The human cost of this is dramatic, the impact on families when someone is seriously injured or killed is hard to overstate.

Other costs are equally dramatic. Business lost 30 million working days last year as a result of accidents and ill-health, costs of lost production combined with NHS treatment costs of poor workplace health was a staggering £66bn. At any time such a price is hard to bear, but at a time of Tory-imposed austerity, when businesses and individuals are struggling to keep their heads above the waterline, this is intolerable, especially given that the vast majority of these costs are avoidable through effective workplace health and safety management.

Improving health and safety standards would not only have a sustainable and dramatic impact on the quality of life of working people, it would also save business and the public purse a significant resource through reduced NHS costs. Investing in prevention, through improving skills and awareness of risks and how to manage them, for employers and employees, is one of the most effective ways of making improvements. Evidence shows the presence of a well-trained safety representative can halve the risk of accidents at work.

The Health and Safety Executive is the key government agency responsible not just for enforcement but also of enabling businesses to manage health and safety better at work - and they do an excellent job on tight budgets. Regrettably, as part of foolhardy efforts to reduce spending the HSE is being subject to radical budget cuts - this is such a false economy. What we are likely to see as a result is an increase in accidents and injuries at work, leading to greater human costs, increased costs to business and increased costs to NHS. Next year's Workers Memorial Day the message is likely to be even worse.

Kevin Rowan

Regional Secretary

Northern TUC