In the London
Evening Standard, an article states that the UK's safety record appears to be
getting worse amid a "hostile" political climate to health and safety
issues, according to the TUC.
The union
organisation said fewer visits were being made to workplaces by health and
safety inspectors to make sure staff were not being put at risk. Local authority safety inspection teams are
also working with "substantially reduced" funding, despite an increased
in workplace deaths, said the TUC.
A report (not
referenced in the article) said the upward trend in workplace fatalities will
be not be reversed unless there is an increase in the enforcement of health and
safety law in all workplaces.
TUC
general secretary Frances O'Grady said: "The Government seems determined
to water down health and safety laws despite recent increases in workplace
fatalities. It seems incredible that ministers seem unconcerned by the cut in
the number of workplace inspections at a time when more people are dying and
getting injured at work." Yet if we look at the HSE’s published statistics, then we see the following:
So, the non-fatal injury figures show a continuing
downwards trend, whilst fatalities show a downwards trend which seems to have flattened. OK, we’d like both to reduce at a faster
rate, and self-employed statistics are depressing, but unless there has been a
sharp upward trend in the past few months, then the article is certainly not
aligned with HSE published data. See
article: buff.ly/ZkKVsS
No comments:
Post a Comment