Health And Safety Updates

BPF Annual Accident Statistics Data Published

The BPF's Annual Accident Survey, helps to gather useful information to support the plastics industry in its quest for improved Health & Safety performance. This year’s report shows that the sector’s performance is improving after a challenging year in 2020. Key headlines:

• 95 accident returns, representing 16051 employees
• 0 fatal injuries to workers
• 13 major RIDDOR accidents reported – down from 18 the previous year
• Major RIDDOR accidents resulted in 484 lost days
• 1164 non-RIDDOR accidents reported, resulting in 120 days lost
• 22 reportable diseases – down from 27 last year

The report not only shows the top 5 accident categories, but also the top accident categories by sector. This year’s report is available to download here – member log in required.

HSE Study: Wearable Technologies to Characterise Interactions In Workplaces

Members will be keen to support an HSE study that aims to measure and understand workplace behaviour and the transmission of viruses. Data will be fed into transmission risk models, improving the understanding of virus transmission and effective control measures in workplaces, transport and other public settings. Find our more here, or for details on how to join the study as a volunteer, to discuss sharing anonymised contact data, or for any other enquiries, email: [email protected]

The Rise In COVID-19

Members will have seen in the news that COVID-19 infections in the UK are rising and have topped more than one million, with a 14% rise in people testing positive - the biggest increase since the summer. BPF have received anecdotal reports that members are seeing this increase and many are resuming some of the safe-working practices.

Combined with warnings of an early “wave of flu” these challenges are likely to put members under enormous pressure to work safely in an already difficult period for the sector.

Additionally, there seems to be anecdotal reports suggesting that covid testing is less affective at detecting new variants and resulting in false negatives, therefore increasing the transmission rate. A recent study looked at three rapid tests and found a modest decline in their sensitivity during the omicron wave versus delta. During omicron, the tests identified as few as 70% of symptomatic people infected with the virus, and only one test hit the WHO’s standard of 80% sensitivity among people with symptoms. The standard advice seems to be that despite having a negative result people should still repeat the test a few days later.

HSE no longer expects every business to consider COVID-19 in their risk assessment or to have specific measures in place, however members are advised to monitor the HSE and Government websites and look out for BPF updates.