Relieving the tension of work-related stress

The Health and Safety Executive estimates the cost to society of work-related stress to be between £5bn and £12bn a year. It has produced a document entitled Management Standards for Tackling Work Related Stress.

These standards provide a guideline to the steps employers should be taking to protect their employees. The standards recommend a five-stage test in order to assess whether an employee is at risk of developing stress and what action should be taken.

The HSE has also published a guide for employees called Working Together to Reduce Stress at Work. These two documents are intended to be used together. In the future, both claimants and defendants are likely to refer to these guidelines and whether or not they were followed by both parties in any civil claim.

Further practical guidance came from the Court of Appeal in January, when it handed down judgement in six appeals, all dealing with the ongoing problems caused by work-related stress claims (Hartman v. South East Essex NHS Trust (2005)). Endorsing the 16 principles set down in the leading stress case of Hatton v. Sutherland (2002), the Court of Appeal emphasised that an employer will only be in breach of its duty if the risk of a psychiatric injury was foreseeable, yet had failed to take steps to alleviate the situation.

Among other points, the Court of Appeal also confirmed the following: an employer is usually entitled to assume that the employee can withstand the normal pressures of the job unless he knows of some particular problem or vulnerability; there are no occupations that can be regarded as intrinsically dangerous to mental health; the employer is generally entitled to take what he is told by his employee at face value; indications of impending harm to health, arising from stress at work, must be clear enough for any reasonable employer to realise that he should do something about it; and an employer who offers a confidential advice service is unlikely to be found in breach of duty.

The defendants were successful in three of the cases but lost three, demonstrating that it is possible for employees to succeed in stress cases.

Despite the Court of Appeal's warning that care must be given in determining whether claims are meritorious, stress at work looks likely to remain a contentious issue for the foreseeable future.