T. Nichols, PROBLEMS IN MONITORING THE SAFETY PERFORMANCE OF BRITISH MANUFACTURING AT THE END OF THE 20TH-CENTURY, Sociological review, 42(1), 1994, pp. 104-110
I have frequently expressed the view that the statistics for over thre
e day injuries cannot be relied upon for the sort of temporal research
on safety in which I have recently been engaged, for instance concern
ing the effectiveness of the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act (Nicho
ls, 1989a; 1990). It has been suggested in the context of some related
research (Nichols, 1989b; 1991a) that the over three day injury rate
may actually be a useful indicator of safety in some respects and that
the fatality rate may not be (Tombs, 1992).(1) By contrast, the follo
wing short account looks to the future and considers whether, in the 1
990s, a point has been reached when any official injury statistics for
employees in UK manufacturing can provide satisfactory monitoring of
improvements or otherwise in safety over time. First, the fatality rat
e is briefly discussed, then the rate for major injuries, then the rat
e for over three day injuries. Two other new sources of injury data ar
e also briefly considered, the 1990 Labour Force Survey (LFS) and the
1990 Work Industrial Relations Survey (WIRS3).