Chapter 3 - Health
                                       
Deaths

Tables 3.20 and 3.21 present the number of work related deaths and the number of on-duty workplace incidents resulting in injury-related deaths to UK Armed Forces and civilians between 2001 and 2010. The information on deaths presented here is for the UK regular Armed Forces, non-regulars who died whilst deployed on operations, MOD civilian staff and any other civilians killed on MOD property or in or by MOD vehicles. Deaths to UK regular Armed Forces personnel and non-regulars who died whilst deployed on operations are sourced from DASA (Health Information). Deaths to all other personnel are as notified by Safety, Sustainable Development & Continuity Division (SSD&C).

Major and Serious Injuries and Illnesses

Tables 3.22 and 3.23 present summary statistics on the number and rate of major and serious injuries to UK Armed Forces personnel and MOD civilians between 2007/08 and 2010/11. The information on major and serious injuries presented here is for the UK Regular Armed Forces and MOD Non-Industrial and Industrial personnel. Only UK Regular personnel and MOD civilians with identifiable staff and service numbers have been included in the figures. Please note that in previous years these tables have included injuries and illnesses to non-Regular personnel and non-MOD civilians. To enable valid rates to be calculated and to ensure consistency with the MOD Health and Safety Statistics Annual Report 2010/11, these categories of personnel have now been excluded. Furthermore, the tables are now presented by financial year to ensure consistency with other published health and safety statistics.

Under the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 (RIDDOR) 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 systems. Service personnel and civilians report incidents to Incident Notification Cells or via their on-site Safety, Health, Environment and Fire (SHEF) advisors.

In order to calculate rates, an estimate of the person time at risk is required for the denominator value. The estimate was calculated using a 13-month average of the UK Armed Forces and MOD civilian strength figures (e.g. the strength at the first of every month between April 2010 and April 2011 divided by 13 for 2010/11 financial year strengths). UK Armed Forces strength figures include regulars and Gurkhas. MOD civilian strength figures include MOD Non-Industrial and Industrial personnel.

Further information can be found in the Health and Safety incidents among MOD Personnel reports and the MOD Health and Safety Statistics Annual Report 2010/11, which are published on the DASA website.
 
Table 3.20 Number of UK Armed Forces and civilian1 work-related deaths: by year of occurrence and type of incident, 2001-2010
"Work-related deaths" have been defined as injury related deaths occurring on-duty or on MOD property, excluding suicides. Hostile action includes deaths categorised as Killed in Action (KIA) and Died of Wounds (DOW) where KIA is a battle casualty who is killed outright or who dies as a result of wounds or other injuries before reaching a medical treatment facility and DOW is a battle casualty who dies of wounds or other injuries received in action, after having reached a medical treatment facility. Between 2001 and 2010 the UK Regular Armed Forces have been deployed to Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq.

A 'work place incident' is a fatality for which the MOD is responsible, that is it is 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 3.21.

Over the 10 year period 2001 to 2010, the number of UK Armed Forces and civilian work-related deaths was lowest in 2002 (26 deaths) and highest in 2009 (123 deaths). From 2005 onwards, hostile action is the incident group consistently responsible for the largest number of deaths each year

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 2001   2002   2003   2004   2005   2006   2007   2008   2009   2010
Total 33 r 26   63 r 45 r 40 r 78 r 107 r 67 r 123 r 112
Hostile action 2   -   40   11   21   48   73   52   107   95
Road traffic accident - on duty2 12 r 8   10 r 10   7   7 r 13 r 6   2 r 7
Work place incident 19 r 18   13 r 24 r 12 r 23 r 21   9 r 14 r 10
 
Source: DASA(Health Information) and SSD&C
 
1. Include regular Armed Forces and MOD Industrial and Non-Industrial civilians. Non-regulars who died on deployment are also included since they are classified as 'regular' personnel for the duration of their overseas deployment. Cadets and members of the public who are killed on MOD property or by MOD vehicles are also included.
2. 'Road traffic accidents - on duty' are those which occur on public highways whilst the Service personnel are on duty.