The HSE is running a national campaign in partnership with local authorities to tackle back pain in the workplace. The campaign focuses on the holistic approach needed to manage back pain and runs from 16 October to 5 November 2006.
The Better Backs Campaign highlights the benefits of staying active to people suffering with back pain and also helps them to tackle back pain at work. According to the latest figures, eighty per cent of Britons will suffer from back pain at some point in their lives and one in six working days is lost to back pain.
In the past, the accepted advice to people with back pain was to take bed rest. Evidence now shows that maintaining normal levels of activity helps to speed up recovery.
Eddie Scoggins, Principal Inspector from Health and Safety Executive's Field Operations Division in the East of England commented:
"Back pain will affect four out of five people in Britain, and results in 4.5 million days off work a year. Employers are losing up to £335 million a year, but the biggest losers are the millions of us who will have our lives blighted by the condition.
“The HSE will highlight to employers in the East of England how important it is for them to work with staff to help them return to work as part of a successful recovery programme. Back pain caused by, or made worse by, work in the East of England is not significantly higher or lower than the average for Britain, but estimates of employees suffering back pain in the region have increased from 41 per thousand in 2001/02 to 48 per thousand in 2003/4.”
