HS2 safety reports ‘industry-leading’ figures for year prior to recent fatality

This follows the death of a HS2 worker who died while working for a subcontractor in Balfour Beatty Vinci JV’s (BBV) supply chain at the Marston Green site, near Birmingham. His death was confirmed on 28 April, a month after the cut-off for the reported figures.

The body behind the UK’s massive high-speed rail infrastructure project also strongly performed in other areas, including Lost Time Injury (LTI) Frequency Rate  and Injury Weighted Index.

Its Accident Frequency Rate posted for the period from April 2022 to March 2023 was 0.06, which was the same as the figure for the 2021-2022 period even though the number of hours increased from 56.8M to 61.1M.

Working backwards from the AFR figures published suggest that 18.3 incidents occurred in the 2022/2023 year compared to 17 in the 12 months before.

HS2’s LTIs for the period last year was 0.16, which was also the same as the year before even though the number of employee hours increased. Injury Weighted Index rate jumped slightly to 5.46 from 4.99 but HS2 has said that this is still an indicator of strong performance with the rise in hours worked.

The full report, which analyses past performance, shows that HS2 performed less well across the health and safety measurables in 2016/2017, despite only 4.3M hours worked it scored highest on all three indicators. Its Injury Weighted Index was 7.37, in which HS2 said was due to four reportable incidents associated with ground investigation works. The same reason is attributed to its 0.09 Accident Frequency Rate and 0.14 Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate.

Other areas that have slowly crept higher include High Potentials, defined as an incident with the potential to cause significant and immediate harm but where no actual injury occurs, and Near Misses. High Potentials within HS2’s supply chain has risen from 39 in 2020/2021 to 79 in 2021-2022 and then 132 in 2022/2023. With the rise in hours worked this posts a rise in the high potentials rate from 0.16 to 0.20 to 0.22.

HS2 said: “As hours have increased year on year the number of High Potentials has also increased due to workload and risk of activity. This displays a strong reporting culture.”

The amount of Near Misses, also known as No harm/no loss, within HS2’s supply chain has also seen a large jump over the last two reporting periods. In 2020-2021 it stood at 354 before rising to 428 in 2021/2022 and then jumping by 167 to 595 last year. The number of Near misses within HS2’s own workforce has also increased recently. In 2020/2021 it was 19, this dropped to 14 in 2021/2022 but then more than doubled to 31 last year. With both figures matched against the hours worked the No harm/no loss rate has fluctuated, standing at 1.18 in 2020/2021, 0.91 in 2021/2022 and then 0.97 last year.

Regarding the publications of the latest health and safety figures, HS2 CEO Mark Thurston said: “Safety is one of our core values at HS2; we believe that everyone has the right to go home safe and well after a day’s work. Equally, everyone living or working near HS2 – and all our future customers – has the right to stay safe and well.

“I have made a personal commitment to put health, safety and wellbeing at the heart of our actions and create a robust and inclusive health and safety culture where every voice is heard. I’ve also committed that HS2 will raise health and safety standards across the industry.

“Our mission is to deliver the best railway, in the best way – and that means building HS2 in the safest way possible.”

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