Safety Newsletter - June 2008

Slips, Trips and Falls - Same Level

Employers and staff in the food manufacturing, retail, catering, construction and maintenance sectors are being targeted in a new hard-hitting campaign from the HSE; it is designed to show the full human and financial cost behind the annual accident statistics.

The HSE campaign, entitled 'Shattered Lives' illustrates how simple accidents can cause horrific and lifelong consequences. The featured accidents include a slip on an oily kitchen floor, a trip over carelessly discarded stock and a fall from scaffolding. The outcomes all involve seriously broken bones that cause knock-on effects such as depression, family problems, ruined ambitions and severely curtailed mobility or lifestyles.

"Slips, trips and falls can be viewed as being minor, funny accidents, but the effects are not. It can lead to major injuries and a lifetime of disability or time off work, and in worst cases, fatalities. 'Shattered Lives' will encourage people to change their attitudes: if you spot a hazard, don't assume 'somebody else will sort it out.'

"Slips, trips and falls can also have a shattering effect on businesses through costs such as employee absence, sick pay and reduced productivity. Irrespective of the size of the business, it could happen to you," said an HSE spokesperson.

Almost 11,000 injuries reported to the HSE last year by the five target sectors resulted from slips, trips and falls.

The HSE estimated that, in Britain, someone breaks or fractures a bone at work every 25 minutes and one person a week dies from such an accident. These incidents account for almost a third of all accidents in the workplace, according to figures reported to the HSE. For the employers, these cases involved fines of between £15,000 and £30,000 and major contracts lost as a consequence.

Alan Herbert, Managing Director of National Britannia's health & safety division, welcomed the high-impact campaign. "It gets across both the disturbing human and business costs of such accidents, which are easily avoidable through greater awareness and better management of the risks. It is a question of identifying the hazards in a systematic way and ensuring they are dealt with on a regular basis. Complacency is the greatest enemy, as these case studies illustrated."

The HSE has developed a Slip Assessment Tool, which can be downloaded from www.hsesat.info