Helping your clients to prevent injuries in the workplace

15 Dec 2020

Slips and trips are the single largest cause of accidents in both public areas and workplaces. There are over 100,000 serious slip accidents in UK workplaces annually. That’s one every minute. The average cost of a personal injury claim is £7.5k – that adds up to an estimated cost of over £1.25bn every year.*

Unfortunately, statistics like these don’t stop many businesses from dismissing them as trivial, or simply the result of workers not taking adequate care. Dig a little deeper, however, and there’s a wealth of evidence that shows many are preventable, if we adopt a multi-disciplinary, multi-faceted approach to mitigating the risk.

What to look out for

When it comes to identifying risk areas, it can be difficult to know where to start, especially on larger premises. Here’s a few handy hints from our Risk Management team on how to eliminate the threat of slips and trips in common high-risk areas:

  • Stairs and steps – stair dimensions are a root cause of accidents. Use of correctly designed handrails can also make a big difference.
  • Access and egress - consider where environmental conditions, such as rain, snow and ice, could get into areas of high footfall, such as entrance lobbies or corridors. The correct positioning of entrance matting, provision of external canopies and grilles for solid contamination removal can all help reduce risk
  • Barefoot areas - where people walk barefoot, you may find deposits of body fats and surface water on floors. Good cleaning practices, and effective drainage to minimise wet surfaces, can help reduce the risks.
  • External areas - car parks, footpaths, steps and stairs are common sites of slips and trip. Using accident and near miss data more effectively can help identify 'hot spots', where additional controls or remedial action could make a big difference
  • Potholes -  Local Highways Authorities have set standards for inspection and repair. It’s a good idea for property owners to do the same, as part of their risk assessment process

Download our Risk Management advice guide today

We’ve recently updated our Risk Management advice guide on slips, trips and falls, which you can view and download here.

Designed to be shared with your commercial clients, the guide has been developed by our expert Risk Management team to help your commercial clients mitigate accidents in the workplace. It covers:

  • The fundamentals businesses need to focus on
  • How to assess design and layouts to spot potential injury hotspots
  • What to look for inside and outside
  • Advice on implementing appropriate footwear and the GRIP scheme
  • How Aviva can support your clients to put correct measures in place

Our new Risk Management website

The updated guide is available – with a catalogue of other supporting documentation – on our refreshed Aviva Risk Management Solutions (ARMS) website.

At a time where 83% of UK businesses are looking to maintain or increase their focus on risk management strategies**, quick access to expert guidance and support is key. Not only is the website now easier to navigate, we’ve refreshed our resources, including our best practice Loss Prevention Standards, complete with practical checklists to help you and your clients manage risk – from the very traditional to the most unexpected.

Discover the new ARMS website today.

*Health & Safety Executive Report 2017, Labour Force Survey, CSSA, Hill Dickinson, Aviva, QBE

** Aviva commissioned research, YouGov, 2020 (slide 25)