The Health and Safety Executive has revealed that 63 major injuries were recorded in workplaces across Caerphilly County Borough in 2010/11.
In total, 304 people suffered a major injury while at work in Cardiff, the Vale of Glamorgan and Caerphilly last year, according to the latest statistics.
The watchdog has issued a fresh warning about workplace safety after it also revealed the number of deaths rose across Great Britain during the same period.
A total of 171 people were killed at work in Great Britain last year, compared to 147 deaths during 2009/10. More than 24,700 workers also suffered a major injury in 2010/11.
There were 192 major injuries recorded in Cardiff this year compared to 218 major injuries in 2009/10. In the Vale of Glamorgan, 49 major injuries were recorded this year compared to 50 in 2009/10.
In Caerphilly, 63 major injuries occurred compared to 62 in the previous year. There were no work-related deaths in Cardiff, the Vale and Caerphilly.
Another 1,051 workers across the three areas suffered an injury or ill health which required them to take at least three days off work in 2010/11, compared to 1,228 in 2009/10.
Nick O’Connor, Principal Inspector for the HSE in Wales, said: “These 304 workers in Cardiff, the Vale of Glamorgan and Caerphilly have had their lives changed forever by a major injury.
“These statistics highlight why we need good health and safety in British workplaces. Employers need to spend their time tackling the real dangers that workers face and stop worrying about trivial risks or doing pointless paperwork.
“It’s important to remember that we still have one of the lowest rates of workplace deaths in Europe, but one death is still one too many. I would urge businesses to focus on helping to cut the number of deaths in 2012.”
Nick O'Conner (Principal Inspector for HSE) is bang on when he said,
"Employers need to spend their time tackling the real dangers that workers face and stop worrying about trivial risks or doing pointless paperwork."
When I was a manager in the paper industry we developed a very good system of recording 'near miss' incidents. This was to identify hazards that had not yet led to an accident, record them and put in place remedial action. This system was spotted by the directors who turned into a grotesque competition between paper mills and individual shifts.
The mill manager commanded me to produce 8 near miss reports per working day. I protested saying that I would fill in 28 near misses per day if there were real hazards but to manufacture them simply for a 'league table' was nonsense. I was over-ruled; this led to lengthy reports on trivia such as "water spilled on floor" and the clean up measures used to remedy this potential slip hazard.
I thus found myself spending more than an hour of my day generating useless reports; these went to the safety department that employed several people to process the dozens of reports from me and other managers.
This colossal waste of time and resources had the effect of down-grading real hazards, which got lost amongst the dross being produced daily. At last someone from the HSE has identified this obsession with trivial risks and associated paperwork which hinder manufacturing managers from their real task which is to complete the production plan ‘on time, in full’ whilst identifying real hazards and acting swiftly to prevent injuries. Let us hope the HSE now moves to discourage paper shuffling, which is leading to injuries at work, and promotes an environment where managers and workers can pinpoint serious risks and eliminate them.
Incidentally, I failed to produce the required number of ‘near miss’ reports but my staff enjoyed an excellent safety record. I have never lost sleep over my failure to produce paperwork, I would have suffered sleepless nights if I had neglected the safety of my people.