HSE PUBLISHES GUIDANCE TO HELP STRESS-BUSTING MANAGERS TACKLE BRITAIN'S #3.75 BILLION STRESS BILL

26 Jun 2001 12:00 AM

Today the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) published comprehensive guidance on preventing work-related stress.

Stress-related illness is responsible for the loss of 6.5 million working days each year, costing employers around #370 million and society as a whole as much as #3.75 billion. An estimated half a million people in Britain are suffering from work-related stress, anxiety or depression at levels that make them ill.

Tackling work-related stress: a managers'' guide to improving and maintaining employee health and well-being is for managers in organisations employing over 50 people. This provides a step-by-step approach to tackling the causes of stress in the workplace. It helps them to identify who is at risk and what steps they can take to prevent problems occurring, as well as outlining employers'' statutory obligations and making the case for taking effective action now.

The guide examines:

* culture: how supportive the organisation is;

* demands: the load placed on individuals and their capacity to handle it;

* control: the amount of say an individual has in how work is carried out;

* relationships: how people relate to one another in the workplace

* change: within and outside the organisation and its effects on workers;

* role: the need for an employee to be clear about his/her place in the organisation;

* support and training: its importance in doing the job well and ensuring good mental health.

HSE''s stress spokesperson, Elizabeth Gyngell, said: ''Work-related stress is a huge occupational health problem facing Britain today, inflicting a heavy toll both in terms of financial cost and human suffering. Managers have a key role to play in reducing this toll - there is so much they can do which is both simple and effective. This guidance offers them practical advice on how to tackle stress issues head-on.

''We recognise that there is considerable pressure in the modern competitive work place, but there is a difference between the buzz people get from doing a busy job and staff simply being unable to cope with the strains placed upon them. A burnt-out workforce is an unproductive workforce and it is in no one''s interests to find themselves in this situation. The spread of good management practice is absolutely vital and I would urge organisations to work alongside us to share knowledge and develop practical solutions.''

Ms Gyngell concluded: ''The guidance is the first step towards producing management standards which will establish benchmarks for measuring employers'' performance in preventing work-related stress and will make enforcing stress-related health and safety offences easier. We will be developing these in partnership with business over the next few years.''

In addition to the new guidance, an employee leaflet is also available. Tackling work-related stress - a guide for employees explains what stress is and how it affects people, providing details of what individuals can do at work to help their manager in tackling the problem.

Copies of Tackling work-related stress a managers'' guide to improving and maintaining employee health and well-being, (ref HSG218) ISBN 0 7176 2050 6 price #7.95, can be ordered online at http://www.hsebooks.co.uk or are available from HSE Books, PO Box 1999, Sudbury, Suffolk, CO10 2WA, tel: 01787-881165 or fax: 01787-313995. HSE priced publications are also available from all good bookshops.

Notes to Editors

1. The Health and Safety Commission (HSC) has identified stress as one of its eight priority programmes aimed at reducing accidents, injuries and ill-health in the workplace. Last year the HSC and Government launched the Revitalising Health and Safety initiative, which aims to achieve, by the year 2010: a 30 per cent reduction in the incidence of working days lost through work-related illness and injury; a 20 per cent reduction in the incidence of people suffering from work-related ill-health; and a 10 per cent reduction in the rate of work-related fatal and major injuries. The HSE also launched last year its Securing Health Together strategy, which forms the central plank for achieving the first two Revitalising targets. See www.ohstrategy.net for more information.

2. HSE defines work related stress as ''the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressure or other types of demand placed upon them''. This differentiates between the beneficial effects of stretching or challenging work which can provide a ''buzz'', and work related stress, the natural but distressing reaction to demands or ''pressures'' that the person feels that they cannot cope with.

3. Data in this press-release relate to a survey of self-reported work-related illness undertaken in 1995 (''Self-reported Work-related Illness in 1995: Results from a household survey'', HSE Books, 1998, ISBN 07176 1509 X). Successive workplace surveys have put the spotlight on the scale of occupational stress.

4. Recently, results from a new survey conducted in 1999 have been released. Self-reported Work-related Illness in 1998/99: Results from EUROSTAT ill-health module in the 1999 Labour Force Survey summer quarter can be found on the HSE website www.hse.gov.uk/hthdir/noframes/euro9899.htm. Despite not been directly comparable, best available comparisons suggest that the prevalence of self-reported work-related stress has increased from 1995 to 1999.

5. This new report provides data on illnesses people believed were caused or made worse by their work and offers further evidence of the scale of the problem. It estimates that almost 150,000 employees report taking at least one month off work with a stress-related condition. Those aged 35-44 reported the highest rates of work-related stress and for those still employed in the job causing stress, rates increased with length of time in that job. Employees more likely to report work-related stress than the self-employed. Nurses and teachers are some of the most stressed occupations. Prevalence rates of self-reported work-related stress were highest in Wales compared to the rest of Britain. Within English regions, London had the highest rate.

6. Work-related stress is the second most common type of occupational ill health in Britain, after musculo-skeletal disorders. One in five people report their work as ''very'' or ''extremely'' stressful. Prolonged or intense stress can lead to mental and physical ill health, such as depression, back pain and heart disease.

7. HSC/E''s strategy on work-related stress includes: * working with partners to develop clear, agreed standards of good management practices for preventing work-related stress;

* better equipping enforcement officers to handle the issue in their routine work;

* facilitating a comprehensive approach to managing work-related stress; and

* running a publicity drive to help educate employers.

8. In the autumn, HSE will be producing guidance on work-related stress for human resource professionals jointly with the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

9. HSE''s work on work-related stress is just one aspect of the Government''s approach to improving workplace mental health. On 19 June 2001, health Minister Jacqui Smith launched the Government''s ''working minds'' programme, aimed at fighting the discrimination suffered at work by people with mental health problems. See www.mindout.net for more information.

PUBLIC ENQUIRIES: Call HSE''s InfoLine, tel: 08701 545500, or write to: HSE Information Services, Caerphilly Business Park, Caerphilly, CF83 3GG.

PRESS ENQUIRIES: Journalists only: David Garner 020 7717 6455 For press review copies telephone 020 7717 6904.

HSE information and press releases can be accessed on the Internet at www.hse.gov.uk Ends