Psychosocial risk and protecting mental health in the workplace — the new health and safety frontier

This article considers the increasing focus by health and safety regulators including the Health and Safety Executive (“HSE”) on psychosocial risk and protecting mental health in the workplace and how providing a safe, inclusive and satisfactory workplace environment is not just an ethical obligation on organisations but a legal obligation under health and safety law.

What is psychosocial risk?

Psychosocial risk has historically been a poorly understood concept. When one thinks of health and safety, the traditional focus for duty holders and the regulators has been on safety, rather than health with the exception with narrow categories of industrial disease. This is reflected in the investigative and enforcement trends of health and safety regulators.

Further, there have been difficulties with even defining what psychosocial risk is, with a number of different definitions circulating depending on the relevant body. However, the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (“IOSH”) defines psychosocial risk as an occupational hazard that affects the psychosocial wellbeing of workers. This creates the further question of what psychosocial risk is which is effectively the likelihood of factors arising from the workplace environment that could result in a negative effect on workers’ health which could include work-related stress, depression and burnout.

The issue

The latest HSE work-related ill health and injury statistics reveal a worrying trend. Whilst workplace related safety incidents have decreased, there were 1.8 million workers reported from suffering work-related ill-health in 2022/23, and of those workers, over half (51%) is attributable to psychological ill-health, which is work-related stress, depression or anxiety. In total 17 million working days were lost because of work-related stress, depression and anxiety.

These are significant statistics which have caught the attention of the HSE and other health and safety regulators. Conversely, they should also catch the attention of duty holders themselves, such as employers and others who have control of work-related design, organisation and management, not least because it is their legal duty to protect the health and safety of their employees and others affected by their business, so far as reasonably practicable, but also because high levels of absenteeism, reduced staff turnover and the possibility of employment and civil claims will affect organisation productivity and reputation.

Regulatory attention 

A key HSE strategic objective is to reduce work-related ill-health with a particular focus on mental health and stress given the statistics. Unlike safety, current trends indicate that work-related ill health is increasing and the most common cause is stress, depression or anxiety.

For now, the HSE are undertaking a key education campaign known as ‘Working Minds’ which was launched on November 2021, with the objective of calling for a culture change across the UK. Working Minds has partnered with key organisations such as ACAS to work collaboratively to address the this key HSE strategic priority.

However, other jurisdictions across the world are now actively enforcing against organisations which fail to protect against psychosocial risk including prosecuting those that do not comply with their statutory duties.

We consider that at present, workplace stress, anxiety and depression will continue to increase within the UK, when combined with shifting work patterns such as the reliance on remote work combined with other socio-economic factors at play. It is not an unrealistic possibility that given global trends, and the increasing trend of suicides being attributable to workplace factors, such as the suicide of Ruth Perry and Vanessa Ford, the HSE may take a more robust stance and consider enforcement action in the appropriate case.