Will your job be the death of you?

Wales has the highest rate of fatal injury at work in Britain – Victoria Winckler looks further.

When most people set off to work, whatever their job, the last thing that is probably on their minds is that they might not return home. Thinking about how they hate the boss, their next holiday or what to have for tea, maybe. But thinking that they might be injured at work,   unlikely.

Our new ‘State of Wales’ series of briefings looks at how well Wales is doing on some key measures.  The first briefing looks at work, with one of the indicators being the number of fatalities at work.

The figures on fatal injury are shocking

Last year, 13 people in Wales were fatally injured at work – more than one person a month. And if that isn’t bad enough, the rate of fatal injury per 100,000 workers is more than twice the rate for Britain – 0.93 compared with 0.46.

In the past, you might have guessed that the difference was because Wales had a lot of high-risk industries – mining, farming and steel to name but a few.  Today, it is not at all clear why the rate in Wales should be so high.  The main causes of fatal injury at work (in GB) are falling from a height or being struck by a moving vehicle or by a moving object. These are incidents that can happen anywhere: stacking high shelves in a supermarket, repairing a roof or lighting the set in a theatre.

Amongst workers, it is people who are self-employed who have the biggest risk of fatal injury of at 1.36 per 100,000 in Wales last year (2015/16).  Put simply, a self-employed worker in Wales has around three times the risk of being fatally injured in work than the average employee in Britain.  With self-employment showing every sign of continuing to increase – whether real or Uber-style – there is clearly a job to be done to reduce fatal injuries amongst this group.

Work is, rightly, argued to be the best route out of poverty. But it shouldn’t be a route to death or serious injury, as it is for a small but significant number of people.

So next time someone moans about ”elf and safety gone mad’, think about those 13 workers who lost their lives last year because ”elf and safety’ hadn’t gone far enough.

Victoria Winckler is Director of the Bevan Foundation. Our State of Wales briefings are available on subscription priced £260 (plus VAT) a year.