The HSE (Health and Safety Executive) has published its work-related fatality figures for 2023/24 which reveal agriculture to have the poorest safety record of any occupation in the country.
They showed that 27 people lost their lives in the year to March 2024 in England, Wales and Scotland.
Agriculture continues to have the worst rate of fatal injuries across the main industrial sectors, some 21 times higher than the all-industries average.
Under HSE figures ‘agriculture’ encompasses the forestry and aquaculture industries; of the 27 fatalities recorded, 23 were because of agriculture, the remaining four were as a result of forestry and fishing activities.
Causes of fatalities can be broken down in the following way.
- 9 relating to transport, including operating agricultural vehicles or machinery, runover incidents, rollover incidents and crush incidents.
- 3 relating to livestock, including 1 member of the public.
- 2 relating to machinery, including entanglement in machinery and PTO shafts.
- 5 relating to being struck by an object, including falling bales and collapsing objects.
- 2 relating to falls from height, including fragile roofs and using a telehandler.
- 2 relating to contact with overhead power lines.
View the full breakdown at: HSE.GOV.UK | Fatal statistics.
The HSE are supporting farmers to work safely with livestock, as well as simple vehicle safety tips on their website that provides advice on health and safety on farms, Safer British farms.
Legal Responsibilities for Health and Safety
This reinforces the need for those involved in agribusiness and farming to take particular care to ensure they have complied with their legal duties and reduced the risks to their employees and workers as far as practicable.
In the event of a significant injury or a death, there will inevitably be an investigation by the Health & Safety Executive (HSE). Individual managers and directors risk losing their liberty, and businesses risk fines running into hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The central legal messages that all those with managerial responsibility should know are these:
- Every employer or dutyholder has a legal duty, under the Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all employees.
- Every employer or dutyholder also has a legal duty under the Act to carry out business in such a way as to ensure that persons not in his employment who may be affected by the business are not exposed to risks to their health or safety. This includes visiting workers such as agency workers or contractors as well as visitors.
- Every employer or dutyholder is legally required, by the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, to conduct a “suitable and sufficient” assessment of the risks to the health and safety of his employees and others that arise out of all of the activities associated with the business.
- Such risk assessments must be reviewed if there is reason to suspect they are no longer valid or there has been a significant change to the matters to which the assessment relates.
- You are required to report significant injuries to the HSE, under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations (RIDDOR). Go to www.hse.gov.uk/riddor and complete the appropriate online report form.
- There are of course also specific regulations covering everything from working at height to fire safety. You should know those which apply to your operations.
As an employer and/or dutyholder you will need to carry out a risk assessment of the various work undertaken, identifying the all of the hazards that could cause harm; who could be harmed and the control measures that are needed to avoid or minimise those risks. Record the main findings in writing and communicate them clearly to staff. Some form of induction training will almost certainly be required and in most cases further health and safety training needed.
You need to provide the necessary information, training or instruction to the worker in an understandable format to them. After providing information, instruction and training, you need to test their understanding either by questioning them or observing them at work. They must also be under the supervision of someone they can communicate with. If someone claims to have the necessary skills or competences, you need to assess this. In the case of forklift truck driving for example, an employer can only authorise a staff member to drive after they have completed a suitable course of training and been independently assessed.
Breaches of these legal requirements are criminal offences that can result in a hefty fine or even imprisonment. The maximum sentence for organisations is an unlimited fine, and for individuals convicted of such offence they too can face an unlimited fine, a term of imprisonment up to two years or both.
Summary
The key 5 points may be summarised as:
- identify the risks
- what measures can be taken to reduce the risks to as low as reasonably possible?
- Ensure these measures are implemented.
- Review application of measures and assessments and reassess.
- Make sure that your workers – whether employed or casual – know the risks; that they are trained to work safely; and that you monitor and ensure their compliance with safe systems of work.
The HSE’s third edition of ‘Farmwise’ a useful resource, is downloadable for free here.
HSE reports of prosecutions make depressingly frequent reference to the following issues:
- Risk assessments having not been undertaken for obviously high-risk procedures.
- Workers not having read procedures or manuals.
- Workers not having been trained or being provided with inadequate equipment.
- Risk assessments that identified a problem but nothing having been done.
- Risk assessments that were plainly insufficient because they made no reference to risks that should have been quite plain.
The consequences of making sure that Health and Safety duties are complied with can literally be life or death.
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