The other day I found myself pondering what the impact of the last year-or-so of covid has been on the nation’s work-related accident statistics.
(I mean aside for the 127,841 covid fatalities. Or 152,183 fatalities. Or any other depressingly high number that takes your fancy. Ah, to live on an island where you could control your borders…)
So in an attempt to scrutinise the inscrutable and eff the ineffable I have raided the HSE’s RIDDOR fatality in-year data tables (available here) for your delight and edification.
I have simply compared 2019-20 (pre-covid) to 2020-21 (in-covid). The HSE uses a 1st April to 31st March reporting year which fits around the first lockdown very nicely (it started on March 23rd 2020).
All numbers are for fatal accidents.
And I have not removed the members of the public data (as the HSE tends to do) so all figures lump employees, the self-employed and members of the public together unless otherwise stated.
The RIDDOR data sets do not include Local Authority or Office of Rail and Road figures. So a small number of shop & office fatalities will be missing. As will a larger number of railway, tube & tram fatalities.
Enjoy.
The headlines
| 2019-20 | 2020-21 | |
| Total number of fatalities | 147 | 137 |
So no dramatic fall in numbers then.
By causation
| 2019-20 | 2020-21 | |
| Overturning vehicle | 4 | 9 |
| Contact with moving machinery | 10 | 13 |
| Struck by moving vehicle | 17 | 13 |
| Explosion | 6 | 6 |
| Harmful substance | 1 | 2 |
| Cattle | 2 | 11 |
| Struck by an object | 21 | 17 |
| In care | 10 | 2 |
| Fire | 1 | 0 |
| Fall | 29 | 9 |
| Fell from height | 26 | 29 |
| Trapped by something collapsing | 16 | 14 |
| Electricity | 1 | 8 |
| Drowned | 2 | 0 |
| Contact with something fixed | 1 | 2 |
| Contact with an animal | 0 | 1 |
| CO poisoning | 0 | 1 |
| Totals | 147 | 137 |
Cattle-related fatalities went up. Dramatically. More on this later.
The number of fatalities happening to people ‘in care’ and as a result of ‘falls’ (slips, trips and falls which usually involve elderly members of the public in hospital or nursing settings) went down. Could this be due to a significant reduction in the numbers of people visiting hospitals for any reason (other than covid) and avoiding nursing homes etc. like the plague? That’s a rhetorical question, you don’t need to send me answers on a postcard.
Fatal electric shocks went up. In the words of Coldplay, “your guess is as good as mine”.
Everything else moved sideways.
By sector
| 2019-20 | 2020-21 | |
| Agriculture | 14 (9.5%) | 34 (24.8%) |
| Construction | 43 (29.3%) | 36 (26.3%) |
| Service | 64 (43.5%) | 42 (30.7%) |
| Manufacturing | 18 (12.2%) | 14 (10.2%) |
| Water/ waste | 7 (4.8%) | 9 (6.6%) |
| Extraction/ utilities | 1 (0.7%) | 1 (0.7%) |
[Percentages are % of the total number for that year]
So Agriculture went up. Dramatically. And not just because of the high number of cattle-related fatalities. It had gone down in 2019-20 compared to previous years so this may be an unwelcome return to trend.
Service sector went down. Entirely due to the reduction of ‘in care’ and ‘fall’ fatalities involving elderly members of the public in hospital and nursing settings.
And everything else went sideways.
Top 3 killers in each sector
| 2019-20 | 2020-21 | |
| Agriculture | Struck by moving vehicle Contact with machinery Cattle/ Struck by an object | Cattle Overturning vehicle Contact with machinery/ Struck by an object |
| Construction | Fall from height Tapped by something collapsing Struck by an object | Fall from height Contact with machinery Stuck by an object |
| Service | Fall In care Struck by an object | Fall Trapped by something collapsing Struck by moving vehicle |
| Manufacturing | Struck by an object Contact with machinery Fall from height | Struck by object Fall from height Trapped by something collapsing |
| Water/ waste | Struck by moving vehicle Struck by an object Explosion | Explosion Struck by moving vehicle Fall from height |
There’s those pesky cattle again.
Falls from height still kill more people in the construction sector than any other causation.
Explosion sits at the top of the water/ waste sector figures because of the explosion in a biosolids silo that killed four workers at Avonmouth in December 2020 (see here).
By employment status
| 2019-20 | 2020-21 | |
| Worker (employee or self-employed) | 97 | 114 |
| Member of the public | 50 | 23 |
So despite lockdowns, furlough and working from home the number of worker fatalities increased slightly.
But the number of fatalities to members of the public fell (due to the reduction in the number of ‘in care’ and ‘fall’ fatalities involving elderly members of the public in hospital and nursing settings).
Fatalities involving Members of the Public by accident causation
| 2019-20 | 2020-21 | |
| Contact with moving machinery | 0 | 1 |
| Struck by moving vehicle | 2 | 2 |
| Explosion | 4 | 1 |
| Cattle | 0 | 5 |
| Struck by an object | 4 | 1 |
| In care | 10 | 2 |
| Fall | 25 | 8 |
| Fall from height | 3 | 0 |
| Trapped by something collapsing | 0 | 1 |
| Drowned | 2 | 0 |
| Contact with something fixed | 0 | 1 |
| CO poisoning | 0 | 1 |
| Totals | 50 | 23 |
Note that all of the ‘in care’ fatalities involve members of the public as do almost all of the ‘falls’ fatalities. So a significant reduction in fatalities involving members of the public in both of those categories.
What is it with those cattle?
I have blogged about cattle-related fatalities in the RIDDOR data a couple of times over the last few years (see Bad Daisy! and Still a Bad Daisy) but I’ll summarise the position here:
- In the 18 years from April 2000 to the end of March 2018 there were 86 cattle-related fatalities reported under RIDDOR. Of these 85 fatalities 78% (67 people) were workers and 22% (19 people) were members of the public. So as of March 2018 that was an average of 4.7 fatalities per year (including 1.06 fatalities involving members for the public).
- In the 2018-19 RIDDOR data there were 9 fatalities (6 workers and 3 members of the public). These numbers ran the long-term average up to 5.0 fatalities per year (including 1.16 fatalities per year involving members of the public)
- In the ‘pre-covid’ 2019-20 RIDDOR data there were only 2 fatalities (both involving workers). This stands out from the trend over recent years as a low number. It knocks the long-term averages down to 4.85 fatalities per year (including 1.10 fatalities per year involving members of the public).
- The ‘in-covid’ 2020-21 RIDDOR data reveals a very different picture. Over the course of the year there were 11 fatalities (6 workers and 5 members of the public). That puts the long-term average up to 5.14 fatalities per year (including 1.29 fatalities per year involving members of the public).
It appears that 2019-20 was a ‘good’ year in that there were few cattle-related fatalities. I have no idea why this might be the case and it might be just random variation of the numbers. Chance and nothing more.
And 2020-21 was a ‘bad’ year with a high number of cattle-related fatalities. This is more explainable. In 2020-21 the number of agriculture workers killed by cattle is broadly in line with long-term averages. But the number of members of the public killed is a comparatively high figure. Most likely due to an increase in the numbers of people walking for daily exercise during lockdown/ home-working. And perhaps walkers forced to cross fields with cattle in that they might otherwise have avoided if travel restrictions had not been in place. I have certainly done more walking for exercise over the last year or so and much of this has been from my own back door so as to avoid unnecessary car journeys.
By far the single greatest risk factor is age. 97 of the 108 people killed by cattle over the last 21 years were over 50 years of age. It makes no difference if you are a farmer, farm worker or member of the public. It appears that cattle target the old.
Simplistic nonsense of course. More likely the farming population has a demographic towards older workers, with young people moving out of the industry leaving their older parents to run the business. Coupled with the demographic of members of the public who tend to walk across farmland being older people walking dogs. And it’s also likely that age simply makes you more vulnerable to cattle attack. You move more slowly, are less stable on your pins and far less able to recover from physical injury when knocked down, trampled or gored.
In summary
Despite lockdowns, furlough and many of us being forced to work from home there was not a dramatic fall in the number of work-related fatalities as recorded in the HSE’s RIDDOR in-year data set.
Surprisingly the number of fatalities (137) remained broadly in line with the previous year’s numbers (147).
However this headline figure conceals a significant increase in the Agriculture sector fatalities and a decrease in the Service sector fatalities (specifically ‘in care’ and ‘fall’ fatalities involving elderly members of the public in hospital and nursing settings).
Contact with cattle killed more people in the agriculture sector than any other accident causation. As far as I am aware this is the first time this has ever happened.
Five of these cattle-related fatalities involved members of the public. This is an unusually high number and probably reflects the higher than usual number of people walking on land with cattle because of covid restrictions.
Falls from height is still the number one fatal-accident causation in the construction sector. And though the total number of work-related fatalities may have decreased slightly in that sector (from 43 to 36) the number of fatal falls from height remained exactly the same at 18 in both years.
Dr Jim Phelpstead BSc, PhD, CMIOSH
RRC Consultant Tutor
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