Chapter 3 - Health
                                       
The information provided in this section covers a range of health and safety incidents as set out by the HSE Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences regulations 1995 (RIDDOR). Cases include both MOD and non-MOD personnel: regular Service personnel, members of the volunteer and regular reserves if they have been mobilised, MOD civilian staff, and any other civilians on MOD property or injured in or by MOD vehicles. Civilians are required to notify the HSE when they are involved in an incident. For Service personnel, there is no current legal requirement, set out under RIDDOR, for their injuries to be notified to the HSE. However, all these incidents should be recorded on the MOD's Health and Safety system.

The Central Health and Safety Project system (CHASP) was introduced in 1997 to enable the MOD to monitor and analyse accident trends throughout the Department and ensure compliance with current health and safety legislation. In April 2000 a second version of CHASP was launched, introducing improvements to the system and clarification of the data types required for analysis and reporting. This new version was widely publicised and promoted, leading to a noticeable improvement in reporting adverse health and safety incidents on the CHASP system.

During 2004/05, the Army trialled a new system for reporting health and safety incidents, allowing Army personnel to report health and safety incidents to a dedicated 24 hour call centre (Army Incident Notification Cell, AINC). Following the success of the Army system both the Navy (Naval Service Incident Notification Cell, NSINC) and Defence Equipment and Support (Defence Equipment and Support Incident Notification Cell, DINC) have rolled out similar systems for collating health and safety incidents. These initiatives have resulted in improvements in the number of events reported on the system. In 2007 CHASP was discontinued and the Incident Recording and Information System (IRIS) was introduced. Data held on IRIS and by the Incident Notifiction Cells are included in the tables for 2007 and 2008.

A MOD reporting form should be raised for recording any of the following events:

- deaths resulting from work activity;
- injuries or ill health to MOD employees resulting from their work activity, which in normal circumstances would cause more than one hour loss of work time;
- deaths, injuries or illness to any other person where the cause might be attributable to MOD activities or where it has occurred on MOD land or property,
  which can be linked to a failure in responsibility by the MOD with regard to land or property;
- including those involving hostile activity during peacekeeping (excluding war);
- an event which would normally have resulted in one of the above outcomes but no person was affected (near hit, maritime hazardous incident or an event
  deemed worthy of reporting such as fire or property damage).

Further information can be found in the Health and Safety incidents among MOD Personnel report, which is published on the DASA website.
Table 3.16 Number of UK Armed Forces and MOD civilian1 work-related fatalities: by year of
                        occurrence and type of incident, 1999-2008
Work-related fatalities' have been defined as injury related deaths occurring on-duty or on MOD property after excluding suicides. 'Hostile action' is the combination of the Joint Casualty and Compassionate Cell (JCCC) reporting categories killed in action and died of wounds for operational deaths that are a result of hostile fire. Between 1999 and 2008 the UK Regular Armed Forces have been deployed to Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq.

A 'work place incident' is the result of a fatality for whom the MOD is responsible, that is they are deemed to be 'within the wire', thus work place incidents will include any vehicle incidents that occur on MOD property. A further breakdown of work place incidents is provided in table 3.17.

The data in this table are not National Statistics because they have not been designated as such by the Ministry of Defence.
Type of Incident
 1999   2000   2001   2002   2003   2004   2005   2006   2007   2008
Total
 29 r 17 r 30   26 r 61 r 44 r 39   78 r 106 r 69
Hostile action
 1   1   2   -   40 r 11 r 21   48 r 73 r 52
Road traffic accident - on duty2
 10   4   10   8   7   10   7   8   12 r 6
Work place incident
 18 r 12 r 18   18 r 14 r 23   11   22   21 r 11
Source: DASA (Health Information)
1. Cases include both MOD and non-MOD personnel: regular Armed Forces personnel, members of the volunteer and regular reserves if they have been
    mobilised, MOD civilian staff, and any other civilians on MOD property or injured in or by MOD vehicles.
2. 'Road traffic accidents - on duty' are those which occur on public highways whilst the Service personnel are on duty