Health and Safety priorities

The Health and Safety Team won't inspect all aspects of your business, but will concentrate on priority topic areas and how you have identified, reduced and controlled other risks created by your work activity.

There are five key priority areas that have been identified nationally as those causing the most work days lost due to work-related accidents and ill-health. These are:

Falls from height remain the most common kind of workplace fatality.
Work-related accidents involving a fall from height, person or object, results in approximately 80 fatalities.

Workplace transport - vehicles at work continue to be a major cause of fatal and major injuries.
Since 1998/99 there has been an average of 61 fatalities each year as well as over 2150 major injuries and over 4270 injuries requiring the injured person to be off work for more than three days.

Slips, trips and falls - nearly 11 000 workers suffer serious injury as a result of a slip or trip each year.
Slipping and tripping are the most common causes of major injuries within UK workplaces.

Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) - include problems such as low back pain, joint injuries and repetitive strain injuries of various sorts.
These disorders are the most common form of ill health disorders at work.

Work related stress - in 2007/08 an estimated 442,000 individuals in Britain, who worked in the last year, believed that they were experiencing work-related stress at a level that was making them ill, according to the Labour Force Survey (LFS).

For more information on Health and Safety Priority areas click on the following downloads: