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
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