[Paul B]

I think there's occupational health guidance on RIDDORS as well but you probably found that.

Essentially I think it's saying if one of your workers dies of it/contracts it you're going to need to report the incident (which makes sense, given what is generally for).

I agree regarding the construction industry (the paperwork is likely in place but in reality...) and I think it's what you, Ali k and potentially Nige (this is from memory so apologies if it's not 100% accurate) suggested pre lockdown.

[teestub]

https://www.hse.gov.uk/news/riddor-reporting-coronavirus.htm

Looks like you’d only end up with a reportable incident if someone was confirmed as having Covid.

[Nigel]

https://www.hse.gov.uk/news/riddor-reporting-coronavirus.htm

Looks like you’d only end up with a reportable incident if someone was confirmed as having Covid.

Given the ten day limit on reporting fatalities, it would be very interesting to know how many reports Her Majesty's Government have submitted *already* regarding deaths of healthcare workers. Do HSE do do FOI requests?

[Paul B]

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is required by law to ensure the information captured or created as part of its public function is available for scrutiny by anyone.

HSE acknowledges the important role information plays in demonstrating transparency and accountability of government, as well as the wider societal and economic benefits it provides.

HSE only disclose information where it is in the public interest, and where it is fair and lawful to do so.  All requests for information are considered on a case by case basis under one of the following

 

[Nigel]

Thanks Paul, just had a look myself. Will send an FOI request - anyone on here got any hints or tips on how to phrase this? Never done it before? In particular on the detail - would the RIDDOR report come from the NHS trust involved, or from the Department for Health, or someone else?

[Nigel]

Also, can anyone help on this?

There is a morass of Covid 19 data out there. However one thing I cannot find anywhere is a historical record of *how many covid 19 tests per day* have been done in the UK. I know that this info for the current day is published daily on gov.uk, but these pages are not then stored anywhere as far as I can see? Basically I am using Google to the best of my ability and nowhere can I find a list of figures for UK tests per day, anywhere - any suggestions?

PS I have found this page, but it only records "people tested" rather than tests done https://www.statista.com/chart/21316/people-tested-covid-19-uk/

The reason is I would like to keep tabs on how the "ramping up" to 100K is going.

[Paul B]

Be aware, I think FOI requests don't currently have to comply with the usual timescales.

George Greenwood on Twitter is a journalist who uses them frequently. I think he's also written advice for people making them (I recently did one to show Preston City Council that their parking permit app wasn't infallible after it failed on me and I received a PCN; quite satisfying in the end).

[Nigel]

Thanks Paul. Do you know what the "usual timescales" are? Obvs this is a very simple request i.e. please give two numbers from your database - no. of reportable cases of exposure & no. reportable fatalities of NHS staff / healthcare workers.

[teestub]

20 days according to this https://www.gov.uk/make-a-freedom-of-information-request

[ali k]

Will send an FOI request - anyone on here got any hints or tips on how to phrase this?

Can’t help with this I’m afraid other than a suspicion that it might have to be worded very specifically to get the right information? Could be worth emailing your favourite investigative journalist to see if they are interested in this angle as the HSE reporting might not be on the media’s radar. They might be able to get a H&S lawyer/specialist to give their take on it too.

[Paul B]

Thanks Paul. Do you know what the "usual timescales" are? Obvs this is a very simple request i.e. please give two numbers from your database - no. of reportable cases of exposure & no. reportable fatalities of NHS staff / healthcare workers.

I prodded that journalist and he's bit. I'll let you know how it develops.

[Oldmanmatt]

Two minute read.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-china-patients-ins-idUKKCN2240HR?utm_campaign=trueAnthem%3A+Trending+Content&utm_medium=trueAnthem&utm_source=facebook

Good morning.

[petejh]

Nigel I think there's a much more important story to tell here than the number of NHS staff who have died of covid - tragic as that is. If you are genuinely concerned about workers at disproportionate risk of dying of covid, then why don't you do some investigation into how many people who work in the construction and transport industries have died of covid?

It's a story that probably won't get told until long after this is over, for various reasons including lack of interest by the media because the NHS is an emotional hook like no other. Also the political importance of the NHS is felt far more strongly than the political importance of some rough-arsed blokes on industrial and construction sites The media loves the story of defending our NHS and its workers, quite right it's a worthy story and any worker dying through work is one too many. But there is a much larger group of workers who it seems to me are more or less taken for granted because it isn't as an attractive media story, it doesn't twang the public emotions in the same way.

Look up 'more or less' from today for example. The average death rate from covid in UK population for people of working age is currently around 1 in 19,000.
The number of NHS staff recorded as dying from covid roughly correlates with the number of deaths expected in the wider population: 1 in 19,000. There are assumptions involved and you can fiddle around with them, and the proportions are likely to increase. But it isn't drastically different from the general population.
Then look at the fatality rate from covid for transport workers in London. 1 in roughly 1,100 transport workers have died from covid.
Then do some research into construction workers and other trades, if you can find out any figures let us know.

BTW many have made media hay on the fact that the national PPE stockpile (yes there was one, look it up) was reduced in value from £800 million in 2011 to £500 million in 2018. And used this to prove the government were culpable for the deaths of NHS staff. So £300 million pounds of PPE would have prevented 100 deaths - a rate of deaths roughly in line with the death rate in the wider population? The logic isn't very convincing, nor is the £300 million / 100, sad as that may be.

TLDR
The media love an emotional story. The NHS is just that. There are other worse things going on. Are you 'really' concerned about ALL excess deaths? Or are you concerned about juicy political stories?

[ali k]

Pete - yes, you’re right in that NHS deaths are more emotive. A FOI request to the HSE regarding numbers of reported Covid-19 deaths from employers of all types would be useful. No one should be dying as a result of going to work, and is the whole point of the ‘H&S at work act’. I suspect it will be more likely to be reported/investigated with NHS workers as they are being tested for Covid, and it’s easier to associate their work with direct contact with infected patients. And lack of adequate PPE. Other occupations may well be at high risk but it’s potentially harder to prove they were infected at work?

[petejh]

They've calculated the number for London transport. 1 death in every 1,100 workers. Magnitudes higher than the average of 1 in 19,000.

[Nigel]

Thanks Paul. Do you know what the "usual timescales" are? Obvs this is a very simple request i.e. please give two numbers from your database - no. of reportable cases of exposure & no. reportable fatalities of NHS staff / healthcare workers.

I prodded that journalist and he's bit. I'll let you know how it develops.

Thanks Paul. I've sent one too, but suspect a pro would phrase it better and thus have more joy.

[tomtom]

I’ve a contact at the mirror if you need it.

[Oldmanmatt]

They've calculated the number for London transport. 1 death in every 1,100 workers. Magnitudes higher than the average of 1 in 19,000.

Pete, this last bit of reasoning is both technically correct and disingenuous.
Singling out the CV19 deaths and stating that proportion coincides with expected death rates of the general population is a false indicator.
The true indicator of CV19’s seriousness is it’s influence on  number of deaths from all causes and how it deviates from the norm.
This applies regardless of the section of, or entirety of, the population it applies to.

Otherwise, in the case of the NHS deaths (or the others) you have singled out, you appear to suggest that group have stopped dying from anything else.


It will be interesting, Pete, to see if the constitution industry’s toll is significantly at odds with the national average, and I imagine some law firms are wondering the same thing...

[abarro81]

Bet you wont get those stats easily OMM, so Pete's stats are a very good proxy in the face of limited data. (Also, you might well expect non-COVID but COVID-related deaths to map broadly equally by work demographic, so unless you have a good reason to believe otherwise the proxy is likely to work well)

[rich d]

to go back to the construction workers thing. The work is still going on at 3 separate blocks of flats near us that I pass on one of my walk circuits, with little social distancing evident. My mate who's a decorator is still working, not just in people's houses who can't get paint themselves but also on mixed trade sites and there's no distancing or PPE. My other friend who's a plasterer is again still working on residential properties and on larger construction sites. Both of these are working because the amount of earnings they declared last year have no resemblance to their actual wages, and this is the case for a lot of their colleagues. their opinion is that it's a load of shit and they can't work from home and can't be furloughed. This is in complete opposition to my friends who are teacher's opinions and mindset.
Anecdotal I know.
Rich

[Nigel]

Pete, as usual I can't disagree with most of what you have written. Yes of course I am concerned with all excess deaths. Including people starving, dying of malaria, and other non-Covid things. So yes including all UK construction, shop, transport, garage workers etc. But you have to start somewhere and healthcare workers are the place to start for all the exact reasons Ali K gave.

If you want me to show my mercenary side, if you were hard-hearted you might argue that perhaps you could expect say bus companies to be a little behind the curve on protecting their workforce from infectious diseases. Not to forgive any resulting deaths you understand, but it wouldn't come as a huge surprise to find that their procedures on this were a little weak as they are playing catch up. And as Ali says how do you reasonably know they contracted it at work? But yes it would be very interesting to know about this side of things too I agree. I will update my FOI request.

Sending doctors and nurses into Covid wards is a much more clear cut situation.

However if as you say the death rate for healthcare workers is in the same proportion as in the general population, and it turns out from investigation that none of the around 100 healthcare workers died as a result of their work, then at least the sector will know that actually they were well protected at work. Given what doctors and nurses themselves are saying, it doesn't seem likely, but we should know the facts. Much as I genuinely love "More or Less", I think the HSE will have a more solid take on this.

[Ru]

Look up 'more or less' from today for example. The average death rate from covid in UK population for people of working age is currently around 1 in 19,000.
The number of NHS staff recorded as dying from covid roughly correlates with the number of deaths expected in the wider population: 1 in 19,000. There are assumptions involved and you can fiddle around with them, and the proportions are likely to increase. But it isn't drastically different from the general population.

That's a reasonable comparison only if the NHS deaths share the same profiles as those in the general population in terms of age, underlying medical conditions, etc.

[Oldmanmatt]

Bet you wont get those stats easily OMM, so Pete's stats are a very good proxy in the face of limited data. (Also, you might well expect non-COVID but COVID-related deaths to map broadly equally by work demographic, so unless you have a good reason to believe otherwise the proxy is likely to work well)

Not really.

For instance, within construction, there are too many different disciplines, with different working practices/levels of contact with others, etc etc.
Same applies to the other sectors, of course, but those sectors with high “back room” ratios (lower public interaction) versus “front line” (higher public interaction) will throw off the death ratios.

For it to be meaningful, you’re going to have to narrow it to, say, Carpenters, or Nurses; not Construction or NHS.

Even then, that’s not going to actually paint a clear picture for something like “Nurses”. You’re going to have to know how many “Nurses” are working on Covid wards (and admissions?) rather than the total number of “Nurses” to have any real insight into the effect of the PPE issue.

S, I don’t see this being an easy thing for the general public to get a handle on.

Imagine a provincial hospital/trust, with only a few covid patients, where the ration of nurses to patients is higher than a very busy city hospital/trust. What do you do? Take the busy hospital and consider it representative? Average between the two?

Edit:
Anyway, how the hell do really know what numbers to start with, because, at the very least, the official numbers are highly suspect:
https://www.ft.com/content/67e6a4ee-3d05-43bc-ba03-e239799fa6ab

[petejh]

They've calculated the number for London transport. 1 death in every 1,100 workers. Magnitudes higher than the average of 1 in 19,000.

Pete, this last bit of reasoning is both technically correct and disingenuous.
Singling out the CV19 deaths and stating that proportion coincides with expected death rates of the general population is a false indicator.
The true indicator of CV19’s seriousness is it’s influence on  number of deaths from all causes and how it deviates from the norm.
This applies regardless of the section of, or entirety of, the population it applies to.

Otherwise, in the case of the NHS deaths (or the others) you have singled out, you appear to suggest that group have stopped dying from anything else.


It will be interesting, Pete, to see if the constitution industry’s toll is significantly at odds with the national average, and I imagine some law firms are wondering the same thing...

I think you've misinterpreted what I'm saying Mat. That's the rate of covid deaths, not the rate for all deaths.

I.e. 1 in 1,100 workers dead *from covid* for London Transport. 1 in 19,000 workers dead *from covid* in the general population.

[abarro81]

Yes, ideally you'd subdivide by every imaginable variable, or introduce a fudge based on a bigger dataset to account for them, but you're liable to be waiting a long time for that study, and it's certainly not something you're going to smash out in 5minutes of research. Ru's point on comparisons between general pop and any subgroup of working age is something you'd want to introduce a fudge for fairly quickly, but it's likely to be less important when comparing transport workers to NHS as you've already filtered out retirees (the most affected group) in both groups. Adjusting for London would be an early (and probably doable) step too, if it's London transport workers than Pete's stat is for.

As a first pass, if you see a 15x variation between NHS/general pop and transport workers it's likely to be safe to assume that there's something there worth investigating. It's not like it's 1.5x where you might think it's liable to just be noise from ethnicity, age demographics etc. The 15x discrepancy doesn't prove anything, but it stick a big red flag up in your face that something's probably going very wrong for that group of workers.