HC Deb 20 December 1995 vol 268 cc1212-3W
Mr. MacShane

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what was the total number of workplace injuries, and other work-related medical complaints and deaths for each of the last 10 years. [7316]

Sir Paul Beresford

The table shows the total number of fatal and other injuries in all industries reported to all health and safety enforcing authorities between 1986–87 and 1994–95.

Comparable comprehensive figures for work-related medical complaints are not available. Many occupational diseases have long latency and the link with work may not be immediately obvious. The Health and Safety Executive obtains information on work-related diseases from a variety of sources and detailed discussion of these is

Injuries reported to enforcing authorities 1986–87 to 1994–951
Fatal Major injuries Over three-day injuries
Year Employees Self Employed Members of the public Employees Self employed Members of the public Employers Self employed
1986–87 355 52 92 20,695 690 14,575 159,011 1,029
1987–88 361 84 113 20,057 867 12,880 159,852 1,159
1988–89 2529 80 121 19,944 1,152 12,614 163,119 1,503
1989–90 370 105 3206 20,396 1,310 11,378 165,244 1,865
1990–91 346 87 139 19,896 1,326 9,981 160,811 2,077
1991–92 297 71 105 17,597 1,101 11,009 152,506 1,832
1992–93 276 63 113 16,938 1,115 10,669 141,147 2,136
1993–94 245 51 107 16,705 1,274 11,552 134,928 2,531
1994–951 190 73 118 16,503 1,291 11,298 135,940 2,846
1 Provisional.
2 Data includes the 167 fatalities of the Piper Alpha disaster, 6 July 1988.
3 Data includes the 95 fatalities to members of the public in the Hillsborough disaster, 15 April 1989.

HSE gets to know of virtually all workplace deaths. However, non-fatal injuries are subject to under reporting. HSE included a set of questions in the 1993–94 and the 1994–95 Labour Force Surveys (LFS) to establish the true levels of workplace injury. The results of the surveys show that just over 40 per cent. of non fatal injuries to employees are reported.