New Year's Resolutions

But is it really the new year?

Happy 2023 - or is it? 168 of the world's countries share our Gregorian calendar. Whilst you may think you were toasting-in 2023, the Hebrew calendar regards this as year 5784, Buddhists as 2564, and Muslims as 1444. Not only do some cultures have a different “Year Zero” to us in the West, they sometimes apply different numbers of days in the month, months in the year, etc. too. Either way, the start of a New Year always seems to be a good time to review the previous year, and resolve to do better next year.

2022 in review

How did your company perform health & safety-wise last year? If you read Arinite’s UK blog, you’ll know that 123 UK workers were killed in work-related accidents in 2021/22. This is not far off the best-ever record of 111 during 2019/2020 (when COVID forced many people to stay at home). Are you one of those people who likes to tell folk that Britain has some of the best workplace health & safety standards in the world? Well, be prepared for some surprises! The last year for which European comparisons are available (2018) shows that our fatal incident rate of 0.61 workers per 100,000 is indeed better than most, but we were out-performed by Germany (0.55), Ireland (0.45) and three other countries within Europe. If you compare data for work-related injuries and work-related ill-health involving time off work, the UK is nearly half-way up the league table of 32 European countries (not just the EU27) on both charts. Worldwide, the ILO estimates that some 2.3 million women and men around the world succumb to work-related accidents or diseases every year, corresponding to over 6,000 deaths every single day.

Sticking up for us

Our Health & Safety Executive acknowledges that H&S recording, reporting and enforcement varies between countries, and that the European statistical office (Eurostat) publishes data in as standardised a form as possible. It’s comforting to hear the HSE say: · “In 2020, the UK rates of non-fatal work-related injuries and work-related ill health, resulting in time off work, compared favourably with many European countries. · “European surveys reveal that most UK workers are confident that their job does not put their health or safety at risk. Additionally, UK businesses are more likely to have a health and safety policy, and to follow this up with formal risk assessment, compared to other European countries”.

A pointer for the future

Those few simple words about having a health and safety policy, and following this up with a formal risk assessment, potentially hold the key to your H&S strategy: · Once you have a health & safety policy, you have the foundations of a business plan (to make the policy work). · Your risk assessments will be one of the key drivers of your business plan, and help you nudge whether you’re achieving your targets – or just promising “mañana”.

Contact Us

Arinite clients worldwide appreciate we provide practical, no-nonsense advice about what you need to do to establish and maintain a safe and healthy working environment. Our team of health and safety consultants takes pride in keeping health and safety simple. If you need to call upon our expert assistance, or just for an informal chat, please call our office on 0207 947 9581, or contact us here. Jan Mirkowski