The Costs of Workplace Injuries and Work-Related Ill Health in The UK

The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) produces aggregate estimates of the costs to Britain of workplace accidents and work-related ill health which are used for a range of public policy purposes. HSE also produces estimates of the unit cost to society of individual workplace injury accidents and work-related ill health. Ongoing work within HSE's Economic Analysis Unit (EAU) has however revealed limitations with the current methodology and sources of data used to derive the estimates. HSE has commissioned a project to produce new estimates of these aggregate and unit costs, which attempt to overcome the current problems with the estimates. The paper will discuss the background to the work, its aims and objectives, and the methodology proposed.