HSE publishes annual work-related ill-health, injury and enforcement statistics for 2020/21

Today, Thursday 16 December 2021, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has published statistics that cover work-related ill health, non-fatal workplace injuries and enforcement action taken by HSE, in the 2020/21 period.

  • 1.7 million workers suffering from a work-related illness, around half of which were stress, depression or anxiety

Two new estimates have been developed to measure the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic;

  • 93,000 workers self-reported catching COVID-19 at work; 52,000 of these worked in the human health and social work sector
  • 645,000 workers reported that their work-related illness was caused or made worse by the coronavirus pandemic; 70 per cent of these were cases of stress, depression or anxiety.

The pandemic has affected certain data collection and impacted on assessment of trends, therefore there is no new data on working days lost and the associated economic cost for 2021.

It is not known whether some of the people reporting a coronavirus-related ill health condition would have developed and reported an ill health condition if pre-pandemic working practices had continued. It is therefore not possible to assess the scale of work-related ill health independent of the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

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