Facts and Figures
New TUC Report Reviewing Health and Safety
The TUC (Trade Union Congress) have been emphasising the continued importance of Health & Safety in the workplace in their recent report "The Case for Health & Safety."
They challenge the belief that the modern workplace is a "much safer place than it was" with most workers at little risk.
Rise in MSDs
The report highlights how changes in the type of work have changed the nature of occupational illnesses. There have been significant rises in musculoskeletal disorders, including Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI), which affect over half a million people. This is partly due to the huge rise in IT, with far more people typing and sitting for long periods.
Offices are not safe
Although offices have fewer fatalities and very few serious injuries, both stress and RSI are very common in offices and between them account for over 70% of all work-related illness.
"Despite the way that health and safety is often pilloried, for those who are made ill or injured at work … health and safety is no joke."
Brendan Barber, General Secretary, TUC
The main causes of absence from work are:
- Minor illness
- Stress
- Anxiety and depression
- Back pain
- Musculoskeletal disorders
- Home and/or family problems
Absence rates tend to be highest in larger organisations higher in the public sector than the private sector with evidence that the gap is increasing annual cost per employee is £659 puts the cost of absence to employers at over £13bn a year.
Data taken from CIPD's 2007 absence survey
In 2009/10 an estimated 1.3 million people who had worked in the last 12 months, and a further 0.8 million former workers, suffered from ill health which they thought was work related. Musculoskeletal disorders and stress were the most commonly reported illness types.
Since 2005 a surveillance scheme has collected reports of new cases of work-related ill health from a sample of around 300 general practitioners, 53% of cases were due to musculoskeletal symptoms which accounted for 37% of the total lost working days.
HSE statistics 2009/10 Released 27th Oct 2010
More than 2600 people, 54 per cent said they "always or usually" go to work when they feel stressed, or physically unwell - with 31 per cent experiencing physical pain and 42 per cent feeling stressed at least once a week.
Of those experiencing physical pain, 46 per cent attributed it to working in the same position for too long. A staggering 36 per cent of staff admitted to working regularly through their lunch break, and 23 per cent said they take no lunch break at all.
Half of these do so because they have too much work to do, while 31 per cent put it down to there being too few staff to cover the workload. A lack of sufficient staff numbers was also the chief cause of stress (46 per cent) among those suffering from the problem.
Taken from Chartered Society of Physiotherapists study