Covid alone causing a work-related death a day - no fear no stress then.

Extract - TUC Union health and safety news - Number 979 - 4 January 2021

The HSE now has so few resources and a culture that has evolved by government policy from "regulator to adviser", it is now perhaps unreasonable to expect anything more.

"Workers are dying for something better.”

The number of officially reported work-related Covid-19 deaths is running at one a day, over three times the rate for all other work-related fatalities, a new report has revealed. The report, which criticises the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), for ‘resignation and inaction’, notes: “The eight weeks from 6 October to 23 November 2020 saw HSE informed of over 2,000 workplace outbreaks. The same period saw over 5,000 workplace Covid infection cases reported to HSE, including 44 deaths. The officially reported work-related Covid-19 death rate, in a RIDDOR system criticised for excluding thousands of cases [Risks 966], is running at about a death a day.” The report warns: “As the country faces an unprecedented workplace health crisis, HSE’s strategy is to be rarely seen and barely heard.” An unpublished HSE breakdown obtained by Hazards covering the period from the start of the pandemic to 4 November 2020, reveals “of HSE’s 4,892 interventions, none (0 per cent) were prosecutions, 136 (<3 per cent) were legally-binding notices and 865 (18 per cent) were ‘written correspondence’. For the remainder – 3,891, or 80 per cent – the HSE’s intervention was limited to ‘verbal advice’.” Hazards comments: “As hundreds died and tens of thousands fell ill as a result of workplace exposures, HSE’s preferred response was to have a little word.” The report concludes: “An unprecedented work-related loss of life has been met with resignation and inaction by HSE. But with few resources and a culture that has evolved by government policy from regulator to adviser, it was perhaps unreasonable to expect anything more. Workers are dying for something better.”

No! No! No! Covid-19 deaths at 3.4 times the rate for all other work fatalities, Hazards, number 152, December 2020 and related ‘Fighting our corner’ safety reps’ poster.

Venting - Coronavirus risks are mostly up in the air, safety reps’ factsheet, Hazards, number 152, December 2020.