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conditions of that individual".
Work-related ill-health is usually due to exposure to the causal agents over some, often
lengthy, period and not to the consequence of a discrete event. Problems such as
dermatitis and musculo-skeletal disorders usually develop during exposure but others,
particularly work-related cancers, affect individuals many years after exposure has
ceased.
The Moral, Legal & Financial Arguments for Maintaining Good Standards of Health &
Safety
In short, arguments for good management of health and safety include:
Moral: ethical and responsible behaviour
Financial: the costs of injuries and ill-health
Legal: criminal and civil liability
T
he Moral Arguments for Maintaining Good Standards of Health & Safety
Every year in the UK, (2002) about 400 people are killed in accidents caused by work
activities and over a million workers get injured.
Around 2 million people (5% of the population) suffer from ill-health caused by work
and it is estimated that around 25 million working days are lost every year as a result of
work-related accidents and ill-health.
Every year around 3,000 people die as a result of past exposure to asbestos and more
than 25,000 are forced to give up work due to work-related accidents and ill-health.
In order to appreciate the size of the problem, you may find it interesting to compare UK
losses in World War II with the deaths and injuries in the manufacturing, shipyards and
docks industries in the same period.
Leaving aside the question of relative severity, you can see clearly that industrial
injuries caused more casualties than the war.
A major government survey in 1995 showed that 2.25 million people were suffering ill
health caused, or made worse, by work.
The most common were:
Musculoskeletal disorders 1.2 million
