What's New 29.01.10
TUC welcomes official recognition of Workers' Memorial Day
Welcoming the Government's decision announced on Thursday 28 January 2010 to formally recognise Workers' Memorial Day, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:
This special day commemorates the many thousands of people who have died as a result of their work and we're pleased the Government has taken the step of recognising it.Workers' Memorial Day has been an important date in the trade union calendar for many years and we look forward to working with ministers to increase its profile.
Workers' Memorial Day is when workers around the world remember the dead and campaign for improved workplace safety to protect the living. To mark the day this year, the TUC is calling for a minute's silence in workplaces up and down the country at noon on Wednesday 28 April.
Our New Newsletter
The January 2010 copy of the UKNWSN newsletter is now available for download. topics covered include;
- The 2009 Conference, "Stress, the 21st Century Epidemic"
- Bishops face calls to resign over bullying
- Radical overhaul of support for people with mental health conditions
- The value of unions to workers and their employers
- Workers spend nearly 22 million hours commuting every day
and many other articles
RSI Conference 2010
The RSI Action, RSI conference, which is being held on Saturday 20 March 2010 from 9.15am to 4.45pm at the Large Meeting House, Friends House, 173 Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ. Further information is available, along with a registration form. If you would like to attend please complete the form and either post or email it back to RSIAction
2009 Conference Report
The UKNWSN Annual Conference 2009 was held at the Hillscourt Conference centre in Rednal, near Birmingham over the weekend of November 21st/22nd 2009. We now have all the conference material and reports available on a new 2009 conference page. This replaces the 2008 conference report page.
Health for Work Adviceline for Small Business
There is a nerw service that has been launched, the free Health for Work Adviceline for Small Business which helps you to quickly and effectively address the issue of employee health, minimise the impact of staff illness, and provide essential support to staff with physical or mental health issues.
The case for Directors Duties
This briefing outlines the TUC's case for a legal duty on directors and calls on the government to change the law to ensure that all directors are legally responsible for health and safety failings.
In 2000 the Government published its strategy on health and Safety 'Revitalising Health and Safety. One of the planks of the strategy was the need for greater corporate responsibility and a review of the role of directors. The strategy called for two things. Firstly that the HSE develop a code of practice on Director's responsibilities and secondly that 'The Health and Safety Commission will also advise ministers on how the law would need to be changed to make these responsibilities statutory so that Directors and responsible persons of similar status are clear about what is expected of them in their management of health and safety. It is the intention of ministers, when parliamentary time allows, to introduce legislation on these responsibilities.'
Since then we have had the voluntary guidance (twice in fact) but, almost ten years after the strategy was launched, we are still awaiting the promised legislation. The Health and Safety Commission did in fact discuss the issue but were unable to reach a consensus on how to change the law. While the other plank of corporate responsibility finally because law last year nothing has happened in respect of a legal duties on directors.
The issue has not however gone away. In addition to calls for action from trade unions and victim support groups, many safety professionals and safety journals have backed the call for legislation. In July 2009 the independent inquiry into construction, chaired by Rita Donaghy, recommended 'that there should be positive duties on directors to ensure good health and safety management through a framework of planning, delivering, monitoring and reviewing'. Four days later the Work and Pensions Select Committee also called for a legal duty on directors to be introduced as soon as possible
Analysing stress in the workplace
This link will take you to an article in the HR Review newsletter How pro-active management can reduce stress levels and sickness absence. by Clive James, Training Development Manager, St John Ambulance.
The nation's stress levels have continued to increase this year with the tough economic climate being a major factor. In Britain work-related stress, depression or anxiety already accounts for approximately 11.4 million reported lost working days per year with 415,000 individuals believing they are experiencing workplace stress at a level that is making them ill. Let's not confuse stress with a little bit of 'healthy tension' which can often encourage better performance
Lone Working, a Guide for Safety Representatives
The TUC have published A guide for safety representatives to lone working. This useful document covers such subjcts as
- The legal position
- Risk assessment
- Dynamic risk assessment
- Violence
- Working in remote areas
- Home working
- What can safety representatives do?
- Further information
and gives examples to help illustrate the topics.
NHS Plus - Health for Work Adviceline for Small Business
By the end of the year 2009, the new Health for Work Adviceline for Small Business will be launched as part of the Government's initiative to help people stay in work or return to work more quickly when they develop a health condition or impairment. It will run as a pilot programme lasting until at least 2011.
The adviceline will give small business owners and managers easy access to high quality professional advice tailored to their need for help with employee health and well-being issues. This support will help businesses retain staff and assist employees back to work after sickness absence.
Prominent organisations, including ACAS and BusinessLink, have already given their commitment to help. We at the UK National WorkStress Network are proud to be asked to participate in publicising this website and we will keep you informaed of further developments.
We thought you might like to read what the Health for Work Adviceline for Small Business is all about. Please visit the Department of Health web page announcing the Adviceline which introduces the background to what it will provide.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Trauma Risk Management
The police service is a very tense, high impact service, which constantly exposes officers to high pressure situations that require spontaneous responses. The outcome from these pressures is not always obvious to the forces or the individual and can come to the fore at any time. With the ever increasing financial demands on the service, there is a need to consider and continue investment in people's health, safety and wellbeing.
The information contained in this newly published booklet is not meant as a medical diagnostic tool, but a starting point for guidance only, for those who have been exposed to stressful or traumatic situations. It has been compiled by the Police Federation of England and Wales with the assistance of various professional organisations.
Health & Safety Information
Health & Safety Professional is is an online magazine dedicated to Health & Safety and contains an extensive coverage of all aspects of Health & Safety including news, prosecutions. features, legislation and podcasts. Well worth a visit
Fit for Work Service
To help support people to stay in or return to work more quickly when they develop a health condition or impairment, the Government has committed to help support local areas develop Fit for Work Services (FFWS) and to robustly evaluate them, in a programme of piloting lasting until at least 2011.
Further to an open and competitive selection process, Andy Burnham, Secretary of State for Health and Yvette Cooper, Secretary of State for Department of Work and Pensions, have announced the first Fit for Work Pilots:
NHS LifeCheck Website
The national NHS LifeCheck stakeholder website is now live at www.lifecheckers.co.uk. The new website is a one-stop shop for stakeholders, providing news, resources and information to use in communications activities for all NHS LifeCheck products. www.lifecheckers.co.uk. contains a wide range of information, covering everything from the latest news and events through to press materials and case studies. The site also features a support section and a list of useful contacts to guide stakeholders to further help.
Updated regularly, www.lifecheckers.co.uk. gives stakeholders the most recent and accurate information on NHS LifeCheck products and the progress the Department of Health and its partners are making in promoting their use. So if you want to find out more information about NHS LifeCheck; access marketing materials or toolkits; find out answers to your questions or want to showcase and share the work your team has achieved, visit www.lifecheckers.co.uk..
New website for the IAWBH
Dear Colleagues
It is with great pleasure that I am able to announce the commencement of our website for the International Association on Workplace Bullying and Harassment, it is on www.iawbh.org or www.iawbh.com Please add our site into your favourites and join up! The site can accept payment of dues from today and you will need a credit or debit card to pay dues. This will interest those who want to go to the IAWBH conference in Cardiff in 2010. Details of the conference can be found at the website http://www.bullying2010.com/. Please do join us in Cardiff!
This is the first edition of the site and it will be further developed in the future.
The first newsletter of the International Association of Workplace Bullying and Harassment (IAWBH) has been published. You can view and download a copy by following this link
Two in five teachers sick with stress
This atrticle first appeared in TUC Risks 410, 13 June 2009
More than two out of five teachers (43.9 per cent) have suffered from stress related illnesses, a new poll has revealed. The Teachers TV survey, based on responses from 772 primary and secondary school teachers, found a quarter of the affected teachers said they have lived with anxiety (27.1 per cent), with others suffering from depression and insomnia. Some teachers said they had endured stress-related ME and angina. More than four out of five teachers (82.3 per cent) questioned in the survey said they believe teaching is more stressful than work in other fields and over half of teachers (55.7 per cent) have considered leaving the profession because of the stress of teaching, up by 5 per cent since 2006. Stress is also negatively affecting their ability to do their job, with more than a quarter of teachers (26.1 per cent) having taken at least a day off work as a result of stress in the last 12 months. This has doubled since Teachers TV's last poll on stress, carried out in 2006. At the time just over one in eight (13 per cent) teachers had taken a day off work as a result of stress.
Commenting on the findings, Chris Keates, general secretary of teaching union NASUWT, said the findings 'confirm the results of similar surveys, including those undertaken by the NASUWT. What is needed, however, is not a plethora of surveys but urgent action by employers on the clear evidence that teachers are suffering high levels of stress.' She added: 'The critical issue is to tackle excessive workload and working hours and to secure the contractual entitlement teachers have to a satisfactory work/life balance. The changes made to the teachers' contract over the last six years have all been designed to do just that, but still too many schools are not ensuring that teachers receive these benefits and entitlements to protect their health and enable them to work effectively.'
Survivor stress hits the workplace
This article first appeared in TUC Risks 409, 06 June 2009
British workers are experiencing panic attacks and insomnia because of stress associated with the economic downturn, a survey has suggested. Norwich Union Healthcare polled 200 GPs, 200 business leaders and 1,000 employees for its Health of the Workplace survey. Half the workers admitted to being stressed, while one in five reported suffering depression. The annual study found workers are putting increasing amounts of time and effort into their jobs. About half are going into work when they are ill and working longer hours, while just over a third are not taking lunch breaks. A third (33 per cent) of the employees questioned said they were offering to take on more responsibility. When the workers were asked about their illness, half said they were suffering from insomnia while a third said they were having migraines and over a fifth (21 per cent) had anxiety attacks and palpitations. Almost a third said they were drinking more and a fifth were smoking more. A third said they were comfort eating. More than nine out of 10 of the GPs and 80 per cent of employers polled predicted that stress-related illness will be the most critical occupational health issue of 2009. But even though 97 per cent of business leaders agree the health status of staff impacts upon productivity, only 1 per cent said they planned to introduce new health measures in 2009.
Employers' Failure to Deal with Stress Affects Productivity
Productivity in the UK could be being affected by the failure of many employers to deal with the growing stress levels amongst employees.
In a poll of 2,261 adults, Investors in People, the benchmarking company, found that 39 per cent of UK employees said that their stress levels are higher now than a year ago. Despite this, only 29 per cent said that their employer was doing anything to help them deal with the additional stress.
The survey also found that 43 per cent attributed their increased stress levels to a lack of confidence in management, and just 5 per cent said that they have seen an increase in support from their managers during the recession.
Simon Jones, chief executive of Investors in People, said: "Our research suggests that management has so far not addressed the current increase in workplace stress. The longer the problem is ignored, the more it could impact on productivity at a time when the UK economy needs a boost." (Personnel Today, 1 June 2009)
Combating mental health problems during hard times
This article appeared in Training Zone written by Jo Johnston the personnel manager at The Eden Project. Jo Johnston explains why combating workplace stress has risen up the agenda as the economy has turned down, and highlights the benefits of training.
"The economic downturn could cause a 26% rise in mental health problems, according to recent news reports. It is more evident than ever that businesses need to invest in their workforces to ensure they are happy and engaged - both in their job as well as in their home life. This issue has the potential to affect more than 1.5 million people in the UK......"
To view the article in full please visit the Training Zone.
Medical referrals in employment - Is the Doctor appropriately qualified?
Many union representatives will wish to ensure that those who are giving medical advice to either employees or employers on occupational health issues are suitable qualified. This short guide for employees and their representatives outlines the various qualifications that occupational health doctors may have and what they mean. Visit this link to view the documents in full, in print format or in text-only format.
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