HSE Encourages Employers to Tackle Workplace Stress

As part of its Working Minds campaign, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has called on employers to support workers’ mental health during Stress Awareness Month.

Employers are encouraged to focus on one of the campaign’s five Rs for each week of April. These are:

Reach…
Apr 14, 2025

As part of its Working Minds campaign, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has called on employers to support workers’ mental health during Stress Awareness Month.

Employers are encouraged to focus on one of the campaign’s five Rs for each week of April. These are:

Reach out and have conversations;
Recognise the signs and causes of stress;
Respond to any risks you have identified;
Reflect on actions you have agreed and taken; and
Make it Routine.

Employers are legally required to prevent work-related stress to support good mental health in the workplace. According to the HSE’s most recent annual statistics on work-related ill health and workplace injuries, approximately half of cases of reported ill health in 2023/24, or 776,000 cases, relate to stress, depression or anxiety.

The Working Minds campaign brings together a range of tools and support to help businesses and workers, including free online learning and risk assessment templates. The HSE also provides a monthly newsletter to help employers support the Working Minds campaign beyond April.

Service Charges Dispute Focuses on Report of ‘Intolerable’ Fire Risk

Tenants are only obliged to pay service charges that have been reasonably incurred. That principle was the focus of a guideline case concerning two apartment blocks which, according to an expert report, posed an intolerable fire risk. Previous fire inspections of the blocks had uncovered no serious problems so that the report, which found combustible materials in their external walls, came as a bolt from the blue. The landlord’s response was to place a 24-hour waking watch on the blocks as an…

Injured Fairground Worker Succeeds in Personal Injury Claim

There are often few, if any, witnesses to accidents at work and accounts of how they occurred may differ dramatically. As a case concerning an injured fairground worker showed, however, judges are adept at weighing up the evidence before reaching conclusions as to the most likely sequence of events. The worker suffered multiple injuries to his right foot when he fell 15-20 feet whilst working on a ride. His account was that he and a manager were standing on a wet handrail, attempting to free a…

Cooling Off Periods and Retraction of Oral Resignations – Guideline Ruling

Large employers often have ‘cooling off’ policies in place which address the common situation of employees orally announcing their resignation in a stressful moment and subsequently having second thoughts. As an Employment Tribunal (ET) ruling showed, however, such polices, once adopted, must be honoured. The case concerned a supermarket worker who was under strain at home due to her onerous caring responsibilities for sick and elderly relatives. During an understaffed night shift, she became…