Helping Great Britain work well – HSE Project

Our Network Convener Ian Draper replies to the HSE

Dear Sirs,

In response to the request from Martin Temple, Chair of HSE, to add to the contributions for the ‘Helping Britain to Work Well Strategy’ , I offer the following comments from the UK National Work Stress Network (within the UK and European Work Hazards Campaigns):-

The UK National Work Stress Network (www.workstress.net) is a grass roots campaigning organisation dedicated to the removal and eradication of work related stress and its associated illnesses. Stress-related ill-health problems are endemic in many workplaces and employers/managers seem happy to disregard their causes, symptoms and effects, and to take no action to protect workers from the problems thus created. Indeed there remains a huge shortfall in knowledge and understanding that workplace mental health issues are an important factor for employers to grapple with and a failure to acknowledge their role in ensuring genuine the health safety and welfare of all at work. Employees at all levels should not find themselves feeling worse when they leave the workplace at the end of their day or shift than they were when they arrived for duty.

The massive underfunding of HSE in the current Austerity years has led to an almost total lack of effective enforcement on the issues surrounding mental health in the workplace. Thousands of workers are having to take lengthy sickness absence, many never return to the workplace and the overall effect is a dramatic drain on the UK economy at a time when it can least afford it. The Government attitude to alleged bureaucracy and ‘too much red tape’ is creating a vacuum within which many unscrupulous and uncaring employers are able to get away with more and more, thus creating a greater problem for many thousands of workers.

We have campaigned persistently over more than 25 years for full recognition of the HSE Stress Management Standards despite the almost total lack of knowledge or understanding about them on the part of many employers and indeed many workers and even their Safety Representatives too. We promote the Standards in all of our activities which include conferences, seminars and workshops for Trade Union branches across the nation, and in many cases also talking with joint employer/employee forums.

As an organisation we were represented at several of the HSE Helping Britain to Work Well roadshows throughout the UK earlier in the year, and we largely found a lack of full understanding of the stress issues that face millions of workers. Our work over the years has been to educate people into the understanding that workplaces and work practices should be safe and not harmful or injurious to employees of all categories and at all levels.

What are we doing?

• We are as usual organising our Annual November Conference on the theme of Mental Health in the Workplace with academic and trade union input and providing the opportunity for delegates to examine in depth many issues that affect workers and their mental health and wellbeing.
• We provide speakers at Trade Union Branch meetings and at their Regional and National Conferences setting out the causes, effects, symptoms, legal implications and costs of work-related stress.
• We are currently revising our key publication entitled ‘Work Stress’ to bring it more up to date within the law and current advice.

I trust that this brief summary of actions on our part will contribute to the ongoing work on ensuring effective eradication of the causes of workplace stress. We look to HSE for an improved level of enforcement in this area of work.

Yours sincerely,
Ian Draper

UK National Work Stress Network Convenor
www.workstress.net