Every day, organisations take steps to reduce the health and safety risks that their teams face in the workplace. From near-miss reporting to hazard spotting, employees across all industries should be protected from dangers that could impact their working and personal lives. But what can safety leaders do to ensure employees are protected from the most dangerous incidents? In this blog, we’ll take a look at the causes of Serious Injuries and Fatalities and show you how safety leaders can proactively prevent these from happening.
What are Serious Injuries and Fatalities (SIFs)?
Serious Injuries and Fatalities, or SIFs, are life-altering or life-threatening injuries or deaths that occur in the workplace.
Life-altering injuries
These are injuries that significantly impact a person’s physical or psychological function, completely changing the way they live their life day-to-day. Examples of life-altering injuries include brain damage, spinal cord injuries, severe burns, amputations, hearing or sight loss, and mental or emotional trauma, such as PTSD.
Life-threatening injuries
These are categorised as injuries that, if left without immediate medical attention, will result in death. Some examples of life-threatening injuries are the same as life-altering injuries, such as brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, severe burns, and amputations. Life-threatening injuries also include damage to vital organs, internal bleeds, crush injuries, and electrocution.
Put simply, if it requires an ambulance, then it falls within the category of SIFs. Life-threatening injuries have the potential to become life-altering, though not always.
Why do SIFs occur?
Serious Injuries and Fatalities occur for many reasons, depending on the industry and type of work that is being carried out. According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), there are three types of accidents that account for 60% of the total number of workplace-related fatalities. These are: falls from height, being struck by a moving vehicle, and being struck by a moving, flying, or falling object. Taken together, these three causes account for an average of 82 deaths per year in Great Britain alone.
The construction industry saw the highest number of fatalities caused by falls from height (58%). Over a quarter (26%) of fatalities caused by moving vehicles occurred in the agriculture, forestry, and fishing industries. The third most common cause of death in the workplace, being struck by a moving object, occurred across a range of sectors, including manufacturing and transportation.
The HSE’s data for the last five years shows other common causes of SIFs at work, including being trapped by something collapsing or overturning, moving machinery, contact with electricity, being injured by an animal, striking a fixed or stationary object, as well as various other safety events.
What is the impact of SIFs, and why do they matter?
It’s important to remember that these statistics represent real people whose lives have been affected, or lost, through accidents at work. Beyond the numbers, the human cost of SIFs is huge. For those fatalities, there will be an immeasurable impact on their family and friends, as well as their colleagues. Those who survive a serious injury at work will also be impacted in some way, potentially for the rest of their life. Those with life-altering injuries may need ongoing medical and/or financial assistance, and some may even be no longer able to work.
The psychological impact of SIFs can be significant too. Psychological disorders, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Acute Stress Disorder, anxiety, and depression, can affect those who survive SIFs. Problems with drugs, alcohol, and self-harm can also affect employees, not to mention the impact these issues can have on their loved ones.
Not only do SIFs impact the person or people directly involved, but they can also have financial and reputational consequences for the company involved. If the business is found to be non-compliant with safety standards related to the incident, they may be held liable for any medical expenses, including surgery, rehabilitation, or therapy. Businesses may also be hit with fines, lawsuits, or even criminal charges depending on the cause of the incident. When you take into account the other costs associated with SIFs, including compensation, legal fees, or increased insurance premiums, the financial repercussions can quickly add up to significant amounts.
For example, in 2024, the National Grid was fined £3.2 million after a worker was left with life-altering injuries after receiving an electric shock of 33,000 volts while working on a pylon in South Wales. Following an investigation by the HSE, it was found that proper risk assessments had not been carried out, and this directly contributed to the serious incident.
Another example of the financial consequences of SIFs is the case of BAM Nuttall, who were fined over £800,000 following the death of a worker at a wind farm construction site. The HSE found that ‘BAM Nuttall had failed in its duty to ensure the safety of their workforce’ by failing to conduct hazard reporting and site maintenance, which led to the fatality.
What’s clear is that the impact of SIFs goes beyond the inciting incident and immediate effects felt by the employee. Serious injuries and fatalities have lasting impacts for survivors, their families, colleagues, and the company they work for.
The legal and regulatory impact of SIFs
Your first action in the event of a SIF is to attend to the injured person and ensure appropriate medical assistance is sought. Beyond this, safety leaders then need to consider the legal and regulatory implications of the incident and the steps needed to ensure compliance with the law.
Firstly, you should establish if the incident should be reported to the HSE through the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR) scheme. For a serious injury or fatality, the chances are that it should be reported to the regulator. Remember, reporting to RIDDOR is time-sensitive, and a delay in reporting could impact any subsequent investigations.
Next, you may want to carry out an internal investigation. Not only will this help to establish the cause of an SIF, but it will also help you to decide what legal advice to seek if necessary. Following this, the company may be subject to an external investigation. This external investigation could involve the HSE, the local authority, fire authorities, the Office of Rail and Road, and in the most serious cases, the police.
The result of an external investigation will decide what consequences the company will face, ranging from fines and restrictions to business closure and even criminal charges. These findings are often made public, resulting in reputational damage that can last for years. Just one incident can be serious enough to bring into doubt a company’s overall commitment to workplace safety, destroying trust between a business and its employees, stakeholders, and the wider public.
How to proactively prevent SIFs
Serious injuries and fatalities can be caused by several factors. As with all health and safety incidents, the best way to prevent them from happening is through proactive measures. Here are some actions that safety managers can take to minimise the risk of SIFs in the workplace and keep their teams safe from serious harm.
Complete thorough risk assessments
Risk assessments are foundational to proactive workplace safety management. By thoroughly assessing all areas and work processes in your organisation, you can spot hazards and take steps to mitigate their impact before serious incidents occur. Risk assessments should be completed and updated on a regular basis, particularly following a near-miss or accident. Risk assessment software can make this process faster and easier so you can ensure that your safety processes are up to date, helping to keep your teams safe both in the short- and longer-term.
Engage employees in hazard reporting
Another way to proactively prevent SIFs is through good employee engagement with activities like hazard reporting. When your teams feel confident and empowered to report observations, hazards, and near-misses, you will be able to build a more accurate and detailed picture of your company’s wider health and safety picture. By using software like Notify’s Incident Reporting app, employees can share information and make reports wherever and whenever they are working. Managers can then be alerted to hazards in real-time and take action quickly, heading off any risks before they escalate into a potentially serious incident.
Conduct regular employee training
When employees feel confident and knowledgeable, they are more likely to play an active role in managing workplace safety risks. As well as engaging them in reporting, you should also prioritise regular training sessions for employees. This way, everyone will be equipped with the skills and know-how they need to carry out their roles safely and effectively. Scheduling regular, impactful training sessions also demonstrates your commitment to workplace health and safety. As well as delivering site- or equipment-specific training, why not ask your teams where else they would benefit from some upskilling? You should also think about how this training is delivered and whether in-person, online or hybrid sessions would be most impactful for your teams.
Conduct regular audits and inspections
While carrying out regular safety audits and inspections can take time and cost money, they are an important part of serious injury and fatality prevention. Audits can highlight hazards and problems that have previously been missed, as well as demonstrate your compliance with industry and legal standards. With digital tools like Notify’s Audit Management Software, you can be confident that your audits are in-depth, effective, and timely. As well as creating your own tailored audit templates, Notify allows you to automate and complete audits on-the-go, without the need for manual paper processes. You can assign audits and follow-up steps to your employees and then monitor their progress, ensuring that action is taken quickly and effectively to prevent serious incidents.
Use safety insights and intelligence
Organisations collect large amounts of safety data every day, but many are not using this wealth of information effectively. When you know how to analyse your data, it can make a real difference to the way you prevent serious injuries and fatalities at work. Notify’s Safety Intelligence Dashboard brings all of your safety data together in one place, making it easy to visualise and interrogate your audit and inspection data. This software allows you to spot trends and identify where improvements need to be made. You can more quickly see where your safety ‘blind spots’ are and take action before real danger arises.
Final thoughts
Serious injuries and fatalities pose a significant risk to organisations on a human, financial, and reputational level, but there are steps you can take to reduce their likelihood and keep your workplace safe. To find out more about how Notify’s digital tools can support your workplace safety management, get in touch and book your free demo today.