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HSE says NHS trust is ‘failing’ on stress

By editor ⋅ February 20, 2009 ⋅  Printable version ⋅

United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust were issued with an Improvement Notice by the Health and Safety Executive in October, 2008, for “failing to identify the potential risks to the health and safety of its employees from exposure to work-related stress”. The Trust were given until 2 February to complete a stress risk assessment, and current indications from the HSE are that it has complied.

An Improvement Notice is issued by the HSE when “a person is contravening one or more of the relevant statutory provisions, or has contravened one or more of those provisions in circumstances that make it likely that the contravention will continue or be repeated”. This is the first time since 2003 that an improvement notice has been issued for stress related matters, and in 2003, it was also issued to an NHS Trust.

A spokeswoman for the Trust stated that the Trust has already carried out a survey of its employee’s wellbeing, that over 25 per cent of staff completed the survey, and they are currently forming action plans to “improve outcomes”.

Employers have a duty to meet stress management obligations under health and safety law, and this case shows that the HSE are prepared to act against those employers who don’t take this seriously. It is unclear whether the NHS trust in question had carried out any assessment of staff, but the press statement implies their response to the Improvement Notice was to carry out just such an assessment.

Stress and culture audits provide a snapshot of the current employee wellbeing, and provide the roadmap for the action plan. The effectiveness of any action plan is proportional to the effectiveness of the audit, and therefore it is imperative that the audit is conducted in such a manner as to ensure significant numbers of returns, and of course, relevant data.

Tags: nhs