Health and safety at work ‘should be treated as a priority’

Posted 24/05/2010

Employers may need to educate their workers more about health and safety in order to avoid accidents which may lead to personal injury claims.

This is the suggestion of a new survey by the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), which found that only ten per cent of employees think health and safety is a priority concern at work.

Meanwhile, 15 per cent of respondents said they thought health and safety leads to unnecessary red tape, Workplace Law Network reports.

Many workers are also underestimating the number of workplace injuries, with 46 per cent guessing there are 50,000 a year instead of the actual figure of up to 300,000.

John Holden, IOSH president, said the sometimes negative view of health and safety portrayed in the media could be causing employees to turn “their backs on the everyday need to protect against the very real risks that do exist in the workplace”.

According to the Health and Safety Executive, 4.7 million working days were lost in 2008-09 as a result of injuries sustained at work.