Work-related deaths misrepresented in official statistics

Professor Steve Tombs of The Open University highlights how official statistics on work-related deaths massively understate the scale of the problem. A recent press release from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), Tombs notes, claimed that 148 workers were fatally injured in 2012-2013. The true figure, Tombs argues, is at least ten times this number. He concludes:

'Every death creates ever-widening ripples of emotional, psychological and financial harms through families, friends and communities. But the injustices experienced by those so bereaved are surely compounded when an agency of the state glibly under-states and under-estimates the scale of the killing. And, if the HSE cannot present this problem accurately, what hope that it might actually do its job and seek to prevent and respond to such deaths adequately?'

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