CEO's desk - December 24

HSE is a vital agency in maintaining health and safety and with their resources being stretched they are progressing at some pace with efforts to effect collaboration with occupational sectors to encourage focus on health in the workplace. On the 20^th of November HSE held a Prevention Summit in London to encourage collaboration amongst industry groups to share in the challenge of mirroring the UK’s success in 'safety' with equivalent success in 'health'. Of course, this is a laudable objective and a very worthwhile initiative. This reorientation of focus away from safety to health is not new but it can lead to 'group think' that 'safety is sorted', a done deal. It also misses the key, and in my opinion, vital link between safety and health which is that good safety is a crucial control and mitigation against a negative health outcome.

Let’s look at some examples of what I’m talking about from the latest (November 2024) HSE statistics. 600,000 workers suffered a non-fatal workplace injury. There was also a rise of over a 1,000 RIDDORs, with the costs of workplace injury in the year put at £7.1 billion! So is our record on safety, given that we don’t have much left in the high-risk industries of mining, steel or shipbuilding, that good? 

On health, HSE includes lung and musculoskeletal disease. The numbers are troublesome and not down year on year. HSE reports 12,000 deaths from lung disease linked to past exposures as well as over 2,000 mesothelioma deaths. These are terrible numbers and though linked to the past the numbers are not reducing yet. We also have the growing appreciation that silica is a widespread hazard where we haven’t yet really seen the impact in the statistics. Safety controls in the past and into the future would and will have an effect on these health outcomes. Effective respiratory protection as part of a duty holder’s safety management policy will support the reduction of lung disease occurrences.

Similarly, when we consider musculoskeletal disease (MSD), the HSE statistics for the year tell us that 500,000 workers are still suffering from the effects of this condition. Good safety management policies including the sourcing and specification of effective PPE will reduce this 'health' burden. To round off the safety statistics, tragically there were 138 deaths last year from work related accidents, a small increase from the previous year. So, safety is part of health and we lose that connection and understanding at our peril.

Turning now to health as identified by the HSE. The report tells us that 1.7 million people were suffering from a new or long-standing work related, ill health condition last year. While this number is huge, it is also an improvement of 100,000 from the previous year, so progress (indeed too slowly) is being made on health. The mental health agenda is now almost ubiquitous and the HSE stats tell us that stress, anxiety and depression accounted for 776,000 cases once again that is an improvement on the previous year of 100,000 cases so clearly the initiatives are having an effect. This annual improvement while welcome still puts the number much, much higher than 10 years ago, so more needs to be done. 

What is not improving year on year are the MSD numbers, these grew by 15%. So, as I said higher up in my report I firmly believe this is a health outcome which should be mitigated, at least in significant part, by good safety management.

So ill health, which accounts for nearly 30million lost working days each year, seems to be, understandably, a strong focus for HSE activity affecting individuals and the productivity of the country and, the ever-present conversation on mental health is obviously very necessary. However, it is also complicated with so many potential causes or contributors being, arguably, from outside of the workplace. And here one should also remember that these figures are mainly drawn from industries which the HSE regulates, they would not include potentially high stress areas such as financial services. Leaving that aside, society and workplace productivity, the economy, would obviously be better off if we could find an answer to the problem. 

I do feel that the answers will not come entirely from workplace management of mental health. Occupational programmes are vital and being alert to colleagues mental health challenges and ensuring that work does not exacerbate the situation is vital and there are good practical guidelines available for supporting mental health in the workplace such as ISO 45003 and the HSE’s own ”Management Standards” both of which I commend to you. Many businesses now run fantastic mental health initiatives so surely with continued focus, mental health in the workplace will continue to improve. I would though, at this point refer again to the HSE’s report which shows that the three higher than average industry sectors reporting cases of stress, anxiety and depression are Public Administration, Human Health and Social Work and Education, arguably government agencies.

So, our occupational safety and health challenges are obvious and through this article I want to have communicated, that from my point of view, while health is rightly high on the agenda, we must not assume that 'safety is sorted'.

Alan Murray is CEO of BSIF. For more information, visit www.bsif.co.uk