A year in review: what the latest HSE statistics tell us about worker safety in 2024

The Health & Safety Executive’s (HSE) latest report on work-related fatalities paints a lamentably familiar picture. Here, we outline five key points from this year’s statistics, and how these must inform approaches to managing risk.

Ensuring work environments are “safe and healthy” is, according to Ruth Wilkinson, Head of Policy and Public Affairs at the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), “now a fundamental principle and right at work”.

“There has been a rise in fatalities in construction, meaning the number of deaths in that industry is significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels,” she said, following the publication of the HSE’s statistics for work-related fatalities for 2023/24.

“There has also been a rise in the total number of workplace fatalities so it’s clear that lessons aren’t being learned and that much more still needs to be done to protect workers.”

Overall, the HSE’s annual statistics indicate that 138 workers were killed in work-related accidents in 2023/24, up from 136 the previous year.

Furthermore, although the rate of fatal injury to workers has shown a “downward trend” over the long-term, the number of fatal injuries has fluctuated between 130 and 150 for most of the decade, with the recent rate returning to pre-pandemic levels.

The report presents several key areas of risk, some of which are consistently highlighted by the HSE as having the highest rate of injury and fatality. These must inform approaches to analysing and managing risk if the UK is to protect its workers and reduce the number of fatalities across different sectors, including high-risk ones such as construction.

Although the rate of fatal accidents at work is decreasing over the longer term, the recent yearly increase in the number of work-related fatalities does suggest that there is much still to be done. As activity in high-risk industries such as construction increases, so too will the need to ensure that workers go home safely at the end of each shift. Action in the form of updating and renewing risk assessments, ensuring regular refresher training and tool box talks take place and are recorded, ensuring all staff and visitors to site are fully and properly inducted, making sure your policies and procedures are being properly followed and having a robust and frequent auditing and monitoring regime is a must if the UK is to avoid another increase in the number of work-related fatalities next year and individuals and organisations wish to avoid becoming part of the statistics.