In the second of a two-part series, Rod Vaughan says poor data and analysis of workplace injuries and deaths are partly to blame for New Zealand’s high accident rate.
One of New Zealand’s foremost health and safety researchers says inadequate data has been a ‘serious impediment’ to cutting the alarming rate of workplace death and injury in New Zealand.
Dr Rebbecca Lilley, senior research fellow at Otago University’s Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, says while WorkSafe has recently improved its data collection, there are still some major gaps.
About 100 people die from workplace accidents every year in New Zealand while the economic and social cost of work-related injuries is $3.5 billion.
“Inadequate data has repeatedly been highlighted as a serious impediment to reducing workplace injury in New Zealand,” Lilley says. “We’ve been able to see there’s some quite significant blind spots within WorkSafe’s dataset, particularly around fatalities that happen on the road.
Her research reveals that road crashes are by far the single largest cause of work-related deaths.
“Very rarely do investigations look beyond the driver, the road conditions and the vehicle conditions. So, there’s definitely a blind spot around organisational aspects such as risk management or safety culture or fatigue impairing performance. These often are not investigated in any great depth.”
Lilley says in-depth analysis of worker-related deaths and injuries is lacking, “forming a significant barrier to progressing health and safety in New Zealand. Complete, accurate data and robust analysis of these data are needed to show where preventive actions overall could address New Zealand’s high worker-fatality rates.”
She says the Work-Related Fatal Injury Study (WRFIS), funded by the Health Research Council, sought to address this well-recognised knowledge gap, using detailed coronial records to identify all fatal injury incidents due to work between 2005and 2014.
This offered the most comprehensive and accurate evidence for targeting ways of reducing the number of work-related fatal injuries in New Zealand.
Its main findings were:
- A total of 955 workers were fatally injured while working: 740 in the workplace and 215 while driving for a work purpose on a public road. These numbers are 59% higher than official New Zealand estimates of worker deaths for comparable time periods.
- During this 10-year period, a 20% reduction in the rate of fatal injury in workers was achieved. The WRFIS data, however, shows the rates of worker fatalities vary widely and are a particularly serious problem for specific age, sex, ethnic, occupational and industry groups.
Rebbecca Lilley - Overall, workers employed in the major occupational groupings of machinery operators and drivers and labourers had the highest risk of fatal injury. Specific occupational groups with “staggeringly” high rates of worker deaths included: mining and drilling machinery operators (129.3 deaths per 100,000 workers); fishing and deck hands (126 deaths); forestry workers (96 deaths); outdoor adventure guides (78 deaths); and air transport professionals (76 deaths).
- Rates of worker fatalities increased with age. Those aged between 70 and 84 are at highest risk in both the workplace and work-traffic environments. New Zealand’s workforce is aging rapidly, and older workers are remaining in work for longer.
- Māori workers had a 42% higher risk of fatal injury, with an average of 17 deaths per year. More than half of these deaths occurred in the primary production and professional driving sectors. Recent evidence indicates Māori workers are exposed to higher levels of hazardous work than other ethnic groups, particularly in the agricultural, forestry, fisheries and transport sectors.
Lilley says the dominant causes and circumstances for fatal injuries identified by the WRFIS indicate that New Zealand is failing to learn from past fatalities and proactively apply critical controls to known fatal risks.
“There is an urgent need for further data improvements to drive targeted risk controls,” she says.
“While very recent improvements to WorkSafe data by including ACC data on maritime and aviation fatalities are commendable, these data are still incomplete, contain significant blind spots and lack the rich detail to inform injury prevention offered by coronial records.”
Of particular concern, she says, is the limited inclusion of data on members of the public injured as bystanders. The WRFIS identified an additional 694 bystander deaths during the decade with more than 50% involving the transport, postal and warehousing sectors.
In Australia, where workplace deaths per capita are half those of New Zealand, official data include coronial records, meaning they capture a more complete picture of its health and safety performance.
“Similar official datasets could be constructed in New Zealand to establish a comparable view of New Zealand’s performance.”
Lilley says various sectors still see health and safety as a worker problem rather than looking at the role of their own organisational structure in setting up their workers for safety failures.
“For example, many workplaces implement low-efficacy interventions focused on protecting the worker which rely on workers actively engaging in wearing PPE or interacting with a tool or vehicle using safety behaviours.
“It is much more effective to consider reducing risk through re-design of work and organisational processes, schedules or equipment to eliminate or to mitigate health and safety risks.
“Evidence also suggests a focus on safe work processes can bring about productivity improvements as well.”
Lilley says tinkering with the Health & Safety at Work Act 2015 is not necessary at this stage.
“Any suggestion of overhauling existing health and safety legislation is premature. We have yet to have had sufficient time for the legislation to be in place to build a robust, evidence-based picture of its performance over time.”
There is no doubt in her mind that the legislation meets international best practice.
“We are now at the phase, however, when enforcement of the legislation needs to be accelerated and embedded into standard WorkSafe NZ practice.
“The resulting 13 charges laid by WorkSafe NZ over the Whakaari/White Island tragedy is an encouraging example of WorkSafe NZ enforcing the provisions of the legislation.
“Similar prosecutions should be made for workplace fatalities in the future, regardless of the expectation of success, to send a clear message that workplace deaths are not socially acceptable.”
Key provisions:
- Unlike the old law which focused on monitoring and recording health and safety incidents, the new legislation is designed to ensure businesses actively identify and manage risks, thereby preventing incidents from occurring.
- The responsibility for this is shared by the Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU), its officers and its workers.
- A range of significantly harsher penalties for breaches of the Act which result in the death or injury of a worker.
- Under the old regulations, the top penalty was a $500,000 fine. Under the new Act, the worst breaches can attract a$600,000 fine for individuals, $3 million for companies and up to five years in prison.
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