Government Responds to Report into Construction Accidents

Government responds to report into construction site accidents

The government has announced its response to Rita Donaghy’s 2009 report into deaths and injuries in the UK construction industry. The Donaghy report, titled ‘One Death is too Many – Inquiring into the Underlying Causes of Construction Fatal Accidents’, was commissioned in 2008 to look at the underlying causes of fatal accidents in construction over the last quarter of a century. 23 of the 28 recommendations in Mrs Donaghy’s report have been accepted by the government, and should now be put into practice either as amendments to current regulations, or as new laws.

In the first six months of the 2009-2010 financial year 18 construction industry workers lost their lives in accidents whilst they were at work. Additionally, 3 members of the public were also killed as a result of construction-related accidents. Whilst these figures are amongst the lowest in Europe, the feeling in government was that more could still be done to lower both the numbers of people killed, and the numbers of those seriously injured.

To allow an in-depth look into how and why fatal accidents occur in the construction industry, Rita Donaghy CBE, a former chair of the conciliation service ACAS was appointed to lead an independent inquiry. The inquiry reviewed recent work undertaken by the Health and Safety Executive into the causes of fatal accidents at work. The recommendations made in the report covered safety representatives, building controls, changes to the legal system, improvements to training and changes to public procurement procedures.

Compensation claims for fatal construction accidents

Whilst it is encouraging to see that fatal accidents in the construction industry in this country continue to fall, and that the issue of workplace health and safety is obviously being taken seriously, there are still thousands of construction accidents each year in the UK. If you have had the misfortune to be involved in one of these accidents and you were not to blame, Camps Solicitors might very well be able to help you to make a personal injury compensation claim. For a free discussion with one of our accident claims advisors.