According to the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE’s) latest statistics on workplace accidents covering the year 2010-11, seventy workers in every hundred thousand suffered non-fatal falls in their workplaces – this amounts to well over ten thousand fall related injuries of varying severity, with falls down stairs alone accounting for three and half thousand of them. In the same period 38 people, both employed and self-employed died as a result of the falls they suffered; a shocking statistic that represents nearly a quarter of all fatal accidents in the workplace.
Falls from height (as opposed to same level falls – including stairs) are one of the most common causes of injury in the workplace according to the HSE data and have stubbornly remained in that unenviable position for many years despite an 8% reduction since 2006. Same level falls, whilst still up there in the work place accident top ten, have reduced by 25% over the same period, which perhaps indicates that whilst comparatively safer working environments such as factories, warehouses, and offices have become places it is easier to avoid having falling accidents in, the potentially high risk of falling occupations such as construction, roofing, tree surgery and power line maintenance etc. remain almost as dangerous as ever.
The construction sector indeed accounted for a full fifth of all the fatalities due to falls reported to the HSE. Whilst fatal falls do represent the tip of the workplace falls statistics iceberg they are the starkest manifestation of the pockets of poor practice still found in the high risk sectors. Statistics also reveal that all the recorded fatalities as a result of falling accidents were male and that in non-fatal falls the severity of the injuries sustained was connected to the age of the victims, with older victims suffering more severe injuries than younger victims.
To summarise, statistically you are not particularly likely to suffer a fall at work. However if you do have an accident at work, there is a high percentage chance of it taking the form of a fall (or back injury) and that percentage chance of your accident being a fall will increase if you work in one of the sectors that still report a large number of falling accidents to the HSE. Should you have to make a work accident compensation claim after injuring yourself in a work place fall, you will unfortunately be one of many thousands annually who are in the same position.
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