It has been revealed that 1.1million people in Britain encounter an illness related to their work and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is said to be the most fatal. There were 148 people killed at work during the past year and that works out as 0.5 deaths for every 100,000 employees.
The findings of the HSE (Health & Safety Executive) study indicated that industrial jobs were the most dangerous. There were 39 fatalities in construction, 29 in agriculture and 10 in waste and there was some interesting news for those in self-employment. For every 100,000 workers, individuals who work for themselves are at twice the risk of being killed due to an accident at work. A positive angle of the statistics showed that work-related fatalities have been halved when compared to 20 years ago.
Naturally, there is a far greater likelihood of suffering an injury at work that is not fatal and 78,222 of these instances were reported in the last year. This means that there is a 1 in 320 chance of getting injured at work and the most common causes are falls from a height, slips or trips.
