The Chancellor’s spending plans miss the opportunity to address the UK’s rocketing accident rates and create £12 billion of valuable economic headroom.
RoSPA research shows that accidents cost the UK a minimum of £12 billion a year through a combination of lost working days and NHS costs. Ten times as many working days were lost to accidents as strikes in 2023, further straining productivity.
Worryingly, the rates of accidents and associated costs continue to rise, with a 42% increase in the rate of accidental deaths in the UK since 2013.
We welcome the Spring Statement’s commitment to ‘look across all available levers to deliver change at the Budget this autumn’. There is a clear economic case for a strategic focus on accident prevention. Coordinated action to reduce the current economic cost of accidents by half would save nearly £6 billion. That is more than the projected savings from welfare cuts, and would also increase tax revenues by ensuring more people are in work alongside freeing up capacity in the NHS.
RoSPA is calling for the Government to commit to a National Accident Prevention Strategy, which could be implemented as part of the Government’s drive for greater efficiency. There is currently no single Government department or accountable minister for accident prevention, with separate work taking place across different departments.
For example, while there are welcome announcements around investment in areas such as the roads network and workplace health and safety, the full potential of such spending to reduce overall accident rates and the associated costs can only be fully realised through more strategic oversight.
The Government’s The Office for Value for Money should ensure that accident prevention is the responsibility of one single strategy and department to reduce bureaucracy and duplication and enhance strategic effectiveness. By effectively reallocating existing funding from various accident prevention schemes, significant short-term cost increases can be avoided. This will alleviate pressures on UK businesses and our health service and – most importantly – save lives.
