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Provisional analysis of HSE fatal injury data 2008/09

PPCS has analysed the construction fatalities reported to HSE during the period April-September 2008. This represents the first 6 months of the 2008/09 reporting period. A summary of initial (‘not validated’ by investigation) fatal injury notifications to HSE are published in HSE Board Meeting papers and this data has been supplemented by information from press etc. Our key provisional findings are:

• 25 construction sector fatalities are included in the data (23 worker/2 public);
• public deaths involved a falling wall and fall into a basement;
• falls from height represent 65% of worker deaths;
• falls through fragile roofs/rooflights account for 27% of worker fall deaths;
• other fall deaths included ladders, scaffolders, shafts and roof edges;
• 22% of worker fatalities involved excavators, lift truck falling loads and mewps;  
• 3 workers died in collapsing excavations;
• 3 deaths occurred on utility industry projects and; 
• 33% of deaths occurred on ‘larger’ projects involving major contractors. 

Comment: The total number of deaths at the half-year mark tentatively suggests there may be a further end-of-year reduction on the 2007/08 number of worker deaths (72). However, falls through fragile roofs remain the largest single cause of worker fatal falls and deaths due to excavation collapses are up on previous years. There have thankfully been no further fatalities involving overturning cranes. The recently announced government inquiry into construction fatalities will no doubt provide a more detailed analysis in 2009.

This article was posted on 10th December 2008 in ALL LATEST NEWS.
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