The HSE stated that despite targeted strategies to raise the awareness of key hazards and causes of accidents on farms over a number of decades they hadn't seen a significant reduction in the fatality rate in agriculture. They believed that the actual reduction in fatal injures seen over the years has been mainly due to a fall in the number of people working in agriculture since the 1980's.
There has also been a significant rise in the reporting of occupational ill health with a huge increase of workers being absent from work from work related stress, depression or anxiety (1.8 million) in stats reported for 2022/23
HSE will still be responding to and investigating serious incidents and accidents on farm but wished to attempt to raise the profile of health and safety on farms in a different way.
In 2022 HSE launched its new 10 Year strategy 'Protecting People and Places' . As part of this it has launched a new campaign aimed at reducing the number of farm fatalities caused by moving vehicles on British farms
Incidents involving moving vehicles have been responsible for 30% of all fatalities on farms over the past five years -- that's 48 lives lost in incidents that have destroyed farming families.
The Work Right Agriculture 'Your farm. Your future'. vehicle safety campaign has a website with lots of great advice and videos on how to use vehicles safely on farms.
The FSP Chairman has expressed concerns and stated that the 'lack of regular inspections, training and events will leave "a notable gap" in proactive and preventative safety measures that could prevent accidents and save lives,' he warned.
The improvement in Farm safety has appeared to be a difficult 'nut to crack' with little improvement in accident and fatality statistics so its no wonder that HSE may be looking at other ways to get the message across and raise the profile of health and safety on farms.
HSE inspections are also potentially stressful and there will often be an administration cost associated with the visit since the introduction of the 'Fee for intervention' if an advisory letter or improvement notices are served , so its not surprising that HSE may be aware of the added burden onto already stressed farm businesses, that a visit from themselves can sometimes create.
It may be that they believe that the best option is to continue to drip feed the safety message by promoting specific H&S campaigns that focus on key farming hazards that are often the cause of fatalities on farms and encourage the improvement in farm health and safety culture to be driven from within the industry and farm specific charities.
Certainly the Federation of Young Farmers Clubs has been organising training courses and events in Farm safety within its clubs including farm safety and mental health wellness courses within its 'The Curve' programme and more recently a Farm Safety Skills competition which focuses on excellence of safe farm machinery handling and First Aid.
There remains a large amount of advice and support out there for any Farms that want to look to raise the awareness of Health and safety within their farming teams and on their premises, from HSE , Farm Safety Partnership and Farm Safety Foundation (Yellow wellies) farm safety charity, to name a few.
The first step to improvement maybe is to carry out an in-house audit and arrange some Farm safety awareness training for the staff so as to start the conversation and help you see where improvements can be made on your own farm.
HSE's publication 'Farmwise' is a good starting resource. and 'What a good Farm looks like'. See links below:
Farmwise: Your essential guide to health and safety in agriculture
https://www.hse.gov.uk/agriculture/assets/docs/good-farm.pdf
The Northern Irish website ' Farm Safe Net' also has links to Farm safety e learning courses.
LKL also runs Farm Safety awareness courses including introduction to risk assessment. Contact your Regional Manager for more information.
