Warehouse accidents are sadly, far too common in the UK. From the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSEs) rather startling headline figure of 8500 work related accidents, 1600 being categorised as serious, in the storage, warehousing and road haulage in 2009-10, further investigation reveals that only a minority of them occurred in the warehouses. To be specific there were 157 major accidents and 812 accidents that resulted in injuries requiring the victim to take three or more days away from work. The totals in those two categories were almost identical for year 2010-11.
Of the 157 series accidents, involving fractures, amputations and other life threatening injuries, 28 were suffered by HGV drivers at warehousing facilities. HGV drivers also accounted for 62 of the 812 three day plus work absence accidents.
The level of serious accidents has remained worryingly constant over the period 2006-2011 and has even risen slightly over the last year. However, over the same period accidents resulting in three days plus off work injuries have declined by nearly 50%.
The causes of the two categories of accident also revealed stark differences when the HSE analysed data on the main causes. The most common causes of serious accidents in warehouses were slips and trips (26%), followed by manual handling (18%), falls from height (16%), being hit by a moving or falling object (13%) and being hit by a vehicle 10%), whereas the most common causes of three days plus off work injures were manual handling (45%), slips and trips (18%), falls from height (14%) and with the other causes under or well under 10% each. Over the years the HSE data has consistently highlighted the areas employers need to concentrate their attention on to reduce the accident rate in their warehouse operations.
Some of the largest and most well-known warehouse operators in the world have put extraordinary emphasis on health and safety with disciplinary policies that have employees dismissed for amassing a certain number of even very minor health and safety breaches. Whilst this might appear to be draconian and the product of an overly driven work culture it certainly results in an enviable health and safety record. What mustn’t ever be lost sight of is however that although, with tens of thousands of people employed in warehouse work in the UK, the overall numbers of accidents is comparatively low, each one represents a persons’ pain and suffering and is, of course, also usually totally avoidable.
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