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Thirty-eight construction fatalities last year

5 Jul 18 Construction continues to be the industry that accounts for the most workplace fatalities although agriculture and the waste sector remain more dangerous environments.

Latest statistics from the Health & Safety Executive show that there were 38 fatal injuries to construction workers recorded in the year to 31st March 2018, accounting for the largest share of any industry.

This was in line with recent trends: over the past five years the average number of construction fatalities has been 39. This is around four-times as high as the all-industry rate but it is considerably less than the rate in either agriculture or waste & recycling, despite accounting for a greater number of cases than these sectors. 

Across all industries, 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).

The three most common causes of fatal injuries across all industries continue to be: workers falling from height (35); being struck by a moving vehicle (26); and being struck by a moving object (23). Together these account for nearly 60% of workplace fatal injuries in 2017/18.

Mesothelioma, contracted through past exposure to asbestos and one of the few work-related diseases where deaths can be counted directly, killed 2,595 in Great Britain in 2016. The current figures are largely a consequence of occupational asbestos exposures that occurred before 1980, the HSE said.

For further details, see www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/fatals.htm

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MPU
MPU

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