Morning all! 

Would greatly appreciate any help finding some statistics - I have been trying to find benchmark figures for falls on stairs to see how our own accident rate compares.

Ideally with figures for outdoor stairs in public places, but because of the lack of success in my research so far I can't afford to be choosy.

Another set of statistics that would be very useful is the risk of falling on stairs for different age groups - the likelihood and/or severity. (for example, how often does a fall result in death or permanent impairment)

(I'm aware of the responsibility to keep the risk as low as reasonably practicable - not intending to use statistics as an excuse to stop trying)

Best regards, Karen

Hi Karen

You could find some old data in the HASS and LASS databases.

Home Accident Surveillance System and Leisure.......

This was contracted to RoSPA until the Government pulled the financial plug. But RoSPA still has old data on its website.

P

Hi Karen

On reflection the other place you might wish to look is the Rail Safety and Standards Board "Safety Risk Model".

The SRM categorisations various types of incident to calculate how many "Equivalent Fatalities" they result in.

As example, 10 "major injuries" under the old RIDDOR counted as one equivalent fatality.

...and 200 or 2000 incidents resulting in less severe injury or illness ditto.

It helps with working out what is "reasonably practicable" as you can work out the cost to society of incidents at a macro level, by applying the Value for Preventing a Fatality (VPF) published by the Department for Transport.

DfT also publishes VPIs for various severities of injury but given that the RSSB model only looks at equivalent fatalities you could link all its figures to VPF currently set at a bit over £2m.

You would still need to work out what "Disproportionality Factor" (DF) you want to set to work out how much should be spent to do what is reasonably practicable.

In "R2P2", HSE says that it is unlikely that a DF exceeding 10 will be reasonably practicable but in most circumstances the boundary is likely to be MUCH less than 10.

...and you have to decide on whether your starting premise is "disproportion" or "gross disproportion".

Edwards v National Coal Board or Marshall v Gotham?

All of which might lead you to conclude that trying to play numbers games is problematic and, perhaps, you are better following established guidance as to what to do to stop people falling down stairs, wherever they are!

Hi Karen,

have sent you a PM.

Xavier nailed it with his suggestion above.

Best of luck

R

It certainly is Karen.