We have appointed a new WHS & HR manager at Silverstone; Michelle Steedman. Michelle has hit the ground running and been out on site visits getting to know our clients and the mines that our teams operate in. Michelle was hosted on stie by Red 5 and had a tour of their gold mines at Darlot and King of the Hill. A big thank you to the team for their warm welcome and accommodating Michelle’s visit.
Site visits are integral part of our ability to provide our clients with a tailored and customer focused approach. It ensures that we are carrying out our due diligence to check safety precautions and procedures that are in place to protect our candidates that we send to site. We look forward to visiting your site in the near future. In the interim, if you want to reach out to Michelle, please contact her on michelle@sstone.com.au
We have a renewed focus on safety after reviewing the latest publication from Safe Work Australia, the Key Work Health and Safety Statistics, Australia 2022, provides an overview of national work-related fatality data for 2021 and workers’ compensation claims data for 2020-21.
Understanding the causes and the industries most affected, can help reduce work-related fatalities, injuries and disease which have a devastating impact on workers, their families and the community as a whole.
Some of the tools we are introducing to help raise awareness include safety text messages going to our team in the field, articles in our newsletters, ongoing training and process improvement. We are also keen to continue to build our relationships with site HSE staff, medic teams and HR teams to collaborate and continue to improve our service to you.
We may include some of the below?
Work-related fatalities 2021
Tragically, 169 people were fatally injured at work in 2021.
Key findings include:
- The fatality rate of workers in Australia has decreased by 35% in the last 10 years.
- 96% of worker fatalities were male.
- Vehicle collisions accounted for 38% of all worker fatalities.
- Machinery operators and drivers had the highest number of fatalities by occupation (68 fatalities).
- The agriculture, forestry and fishing industry had the highest worker fatality rate (10.4 per 100,000).
Workers’ compensation claims 2020-21p
- There were 130,195 serious workers’ compensation claims in Australia.
- Body stressing was the leading cause of serious workers’ compensation claims (37%).
- Mental health conditions account for a relatively small but increasing proportion of serious claims, rising from 6% of all serious claims in 2014-15 to 9% in 2019-20.
- In 2020-21p, there were 474 accepted workers’ compensation claims for COVID-19.
- The age group with the lowest frequency rate was workers aged 35-39 years, at 5.2 serious claims per million hours worked.
Safe Work Australia has published the Work-related Traumatic Injury Fatalities Australia report, which provides the latest detailed national statistics on workers and bystanders who were fatally injured at work.
Tragically, 169 people were fatally injured at work in 2021. While the rate of work-related fatalities has decreased 35% over the last decade and 57% since the peak in 2007, any workplace death is unacceptable.
Understanding the causes of injury and the industries most affected can help reduce work-related fatalities. The report details that almost two-thirds (64%) of worker fatalities occurred in the following industries:
· Transport, postal and warehousing (52 fatalities)
· Agriculture, forestry and fishing (33 fatalities)
· Construction (24 fatalities)
The most common causes of worker fatalities were:
· Vehicle collisions (38%)
· Being hit by moving objects (14%)
· Falls from a height (11%)
7 out of 10 fatalities involved a vehicle in 2021. This means that a vehicle was principally involved in the incident leading to a worker fatality and includes collisions and being hit by moving objects.
Vehicles include not only road vehicles such as cars and trucks, but also machines such as aircraft, boats, loaders, tractors and quad bikes. Of these fatalities, 66% were single vehicle accidents.
This report complements and provides additional detail to the Key Work Health and Safety Statistics published on 7 November.
See below links/references
7 things to know about WA’s new Work Health and Safety laws | Small Business Development Corporation
Safety culture in mining: why and how to improve it (mecmining.com.au)