The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is urging businesses to focus on their legal responsibility to ensure lives are not put at risk and make the safety of workers their top priority for 2014.

The fresh appeal comes as new figures show that 22 people lost their lives while at work across Scotland in 2012/13 and 1,914 suffered a major injury. This compares to 19 deaths and 2,215 major injuries the previous year.

The latest provisional figures show that the number of deaths across Great Britain has fallen in the last year, with 148 people killed at work, compared to 171 deaths during 2011/12. More than 20,600 workers also suffered a major injury in 2012/13, representing a 10.8% drop on the previous year. Five in every million workers were killed while at work between April 2012 and March 2013.

High-risk industries include construction which had 39 deaths last year, agriculture with 29 deaths, manufacturing with 20 deaths and waste and recycling with ten deaths – making up over two-thirds of all workplace deaths in Great Britain during 2012/13.

Alistair McNab, HSE Head of Operations for Scotland said:

β€œIt’s important to remember that while we still have one of the lowest rates of workplace deaths in Europe, one death is still one too many. I would urge businesses to focus on helping to cut the number of deaths in 2014.”

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