Employers ‘are not learning from accidents at work’

Posted 28/01/2011

Employers may need to do more to prevent personal injury claims being made against them as a result of accidents.

This is the suggestion of Roger Bibbings, occupational safety adviser at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, who said adopting a positive attitude to health and safety is a good thing as it could save lives and prevent workers getting injured.

However, he warned that “people are still being hurt in easily preventable accidents” because managers do not implement new safety measures when it becomes apparent that they are necessary.

“Too many employers are still not learning lessons from accidents and incidents, especially near misses, which should be seen as ‘gold dust’ since they are much easier to learn from than events leading to injury,” Mr Bibbings commented.

According to the Health and Safety Executive, 23.4 million working days were lost in 2009-10 because of work-related ill health, while 5.1 million were lost as a result of injury.