Bosses warned about safety of West Midlands workers
Dec 30 2009 by Catherine Lillington, Birmingham Mail
BOSSES are being urged to take better care of their workers as new figures revealed more than 13,000 employees were killed or injured in the West Midlands last year.
According to the Health and Safety Executive, last year more than 250 work-related incidents occurred across the West Midlands each week, an annual total of 13,106 people being killed or injured.
The 2008/09 statistics show 12 people were killed at work across the region while 2,634 sustained major injuries and 10,460 more suffered injuries requiring more than three days absence. The figures compare with 22 fatalities, 2,693 major injuries and 11,353 cases requiring more than three days absence in 2007/08.
The organisation warns that if employers insist on compromising the health of their employees then it will not hesitate in taking enforcement action. Last year HSE prosecuted 119 West Midlands firms for breaching health and safety legislation and took action against hundreds more by issuing prohibition and improvement notices.
Rosi Edwards, the watchdog’s West Midlands regional director, said: “Behind these statistics are the real life stories of hundreds and thousands of people and families dealing with real hardship, pain and suffering.
“The new year is an opportune time to reflect on the number of incidents in the past 12 months, and decide to try to stop the same patterns being repeated. Slips, trips and falls from height are consistently the chief causes of death and serious injury. Many of these injuries are entirely preventable. We urge businesses to take practical action to manage the risks people face in their day-to-day work.
“Every employee has the right to return home from work safely and in good health each day.
“There are straightforward things they can do to prevent injury and ill-health at work: when they carry out risk assessments use them to decide what action they need to take – and do it. Workers also need to be properly trained for the work they have to do.”
