Lawford Kidd's Blog

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) recently appointed a new head to its agricultural section after the existing head - Graeme Walker - retired. He is being replaced by Rick Brunt, who was formerly in charge of field operations for the North West.

Leading the agricultural division is an important responsibility because, despite improvements in recent years, agriculture remains one of Britain’s most dangerous industries.

Agriculture accident statistics

Just over one in a hundred workers (employees and the self-employed) work in agriculture, forestry and fishing but, according to the HSE, the sector accounts for about one in five fatal injuries to workers.

More than one in five Americans say they have been injured on the job, according to a new survey from FindLaw.com, the legal information website.

According to the survey, 21% of American adults say that they have suffered an injury while on the job that was serious enough for them to take time off work. The vast majority of injuries involve slip-and-fall accidents, repetitive motion injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome, and other musculoskeletal injuries.

The most common types of injury were:

A Danish company, Svitzer Marine, has been fined £1.7 million at the High Court in Edinburgh for safety failings that led to the death of three crewmen on a tugboat owned by the company, reports the BBC. The judge hearing the case commented that the fine would have been higher had the company not pleaded guilty to health and safety breaches.

The Flying Phantom had been towing a large cargo ship on the Clyde through thick fog when it capsized.

A subsequent investigation by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch found that the tug boat’s towing winch had been slow to release, causing it to be capsized by the boat it was towing. In addition, there was a lack of safety procedures in place for operating in foggy conditions. The tug boat had also apparently been involved in a previous collision in similar conditions in 2000.

The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) has urged politicians to put greater emphasis on good occupational health and wellbeing.

Tragically, 148 people were killed in Britain last year, while more than 12,000 died from diseases caused by what they have done for a living. These statistics are too high and the Government and employers must do more to prevent further failure, says IOSH.

This autumn, IOSH is meeting with politicians at all three of the main political party conferences to make the case that good health and wellbeing at work can boost productivity, morale and profit – and must no longer be the ‘Cinderella’ of workplace management.

There was a slight increase in the number of workers killed in Scotland last year, despite an overall fall across Great Britain, according to new provisional statistics from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Great Britain as a whole saw 148 workers fatally injured between April 2012 and March 2013, compared with 172 in the previous year, says the HSE. This means that the overall rate of fatal injury has dropped to 0.5 per 100,000 workers, below the five-year average of 0.6.

In Scotland, however, 22 fatal injuries were recorded – a rate of 0.9 deaths per 100,000 workers – and while this matches the average of 22 deaths in the past five years it is an increase from the 19 deaths recorded in 2011/12.