Partner Article

Lawyer calls for greater vigilance against workplace accidents

A top Midlands lawyer has spoken out about workplace deaths after HSE stats that showed an increase were released the same week as another tragedy struck.

Provisional figures released on Wednesday by the Health and Safety Executive indicate that 144 people were killed while at work in 2015/16, up slightly from 142 in 2014/15. In the North West, there have been the same number of deaths as the year before but there are more prosecutions than ever, as the HSE crackdown on organisations who neglect their responsibilities.

Chris Green, Partner in the Regulatory Services team at Weightmans LLP said:

“This week’s tragic wall collapse in Birmingham and the deaths of five men brings back into unfortunate focus the constant risks of work related injuries and industrial accidents. Sadly it is not uncommon to see multiple fatalities in a single incident and the number of people killed in such incidents is on the up.

“One death in the workplace is one too many and employers must do more to ensure the safety of their staff when on the job.

“Initiatives such as visible boardroom involvement and leadership of safety culture programmes have been shown to reduce accidents at a time when the costs of not doing enough to ensure safety are higher than ever before.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Weightmans LLP .