HSE Annual Fatalities Data 2017/18

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has released its annual figures detailing how the UK is performing with regard to work-related fatal injuries for 2017/18.

The provisional annual data for work-related fatal injuries revealed that 144 workers were fatally injured between April 2017 and March 2018 (a rate of 0.45 per 100,000 workers). This is an increase of nine deaths from the 2016/17 figures.

The new figures show how fatal injuries are spread across the different industrial sectors:

  • 38 fatal injuries to construction workers were recorded, accounting for the largest share of any industry.
  • 29 fatal injuries to agricultural workers were recorded. Agriculture has the highest rate of fatal injury of all the main industry sectors (18 times as high as the all industry rate).
  • 15 fatal injuries were recorded in both the manufacturing and the transport and storage sectors.
  • The three most common causes of fatal injuries continue to be due to workers:
    • Falling from height (35)
    • Being struck by a moving vehicle (26)
    • Being struck by a moving object (23)

The new figures also highlight the risks to older workers: 40 per cent of fatal injuries in 2017/18 were to workers aged 60 or over, even though such workers made up only around 10 per cent of the workforce.

In addition, there were also 100 members of the public fatally injured in incidents connected to work in 2017/18 with over half of these fatalities occurring on railways.