https://www.bmj.com/content/381/bmj.p1147

 I saw this in the news: an opinion piece in the British Medical Journal is suggesting that work related suicides should be reportable under RIDDOR, which is, apparently, what happens  in other countries.

Any opinions on the forum, for or against.

AK - thanks for pointing to this interesting CPD opportunity (read, considered and CPD record updated!).

I think there are a number of interrelated issues with what the author of the BMJ article is proposing.

1. Reportability - RIDDOR sets thresholds which do not translate into a report being an admission of culpability.

The article contrasts a "work-related" suicide in the UK which is not reportable under RIDDOR with the stated position in France where apparently it should be counted UNLESS the employer proves that the suicide was NOT work-related.

Which points to the problem of defining what is a "work-related" suicide which is in effect, an extension of the broader issue of understanding how much human harm described as "stress" or similar derives from work, from external influences and a mixture of both.

At present, HSE published statistics, drawing on an estimate derived from the very small sample of self-reporting in the Labour Force Survey, assumes that all cases of stress (and associated absences from work) are work-related. This inevitably leads to a considerable overestimation - indicating a need for research to make better estimates of how much this stress is work related - in part or full.

[Incidentally I have no doubt that there is plenty of stress that IS work-related!!

2. Location - would the suicide actually have to take place in the work environment or could it happen elsewhere?

A parallel might be all those alleged deaths associated with the World Cup in Qatar occurring in places such as Labour Camps and thence not deemed by some to be work-related. 

So, suppose a construction worker is away from home for months on end and living in a Labour Camp or hotel/guest house. I suggest that their suicide in the accommodation might be likely to have some element of being "work-related" in many cases but probably NOT all. The stresses brought on from a peripatetic existence with the potential to impact on the work-life balance.

3. Duty of Care - the article follow the suicide of one Head Teacher following the downgrading of their school following an Ofsted inspection (and references other teachers' experiences). It postulates a duty of care on Ofsted towards both teachers and Ofsted's own inspectors who might be traumatised by the impact on teachers should the inspectors downgrade schools with what might seem to be insufficient grounds - not least with a system which I understand bases the final grading so as to be skewed towards the lowest of a number of marks rather than being balanced over a range of issues.

This proposition appears to be entirely reasonable - it presents Ofsted as being the teachers' "neighbour" within the meaning of the judgment in Donoghue v Stevenson.

4. Duty on HSE - The article demands that HSE should be required to investigate all "work-related" suicides. I can't see this being translated into a binding requirement on HSE partly due to lack of resources and partly due to the difficulty in defining what would and woule not fall within scope.

I don't think that the time is right to amend RIDDOR to take this up - MUCH more research is needed to establish the scale of what (and where) should or should not be deemed to be a suicide that is (or is even likely to be) work-related.

There are other loopholes in the scope of RIDDOR which could be closed iwth much greater ease - I think the start would be to remove the exception for most work-related transport incidents that would be reportable in other sectors.

Unfortunately in the absence of explanation people will seek to rationalise why someone did something so significantly out of character.

Without that thread of information the article seems devoid of where or how the HSE could establish work place cause(s) free from emotional speculation from family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances.

Suicide in work is rare due to the risk of interruption and intervention. 

Hi Chris

If we take the reporting out of the equation, root cause investigations are all about looking down LOTS of rabbit holes and seeing where they lead.

Very, very rarely does HSE look down ALL the rabbit holes. The focus is almost invariably on making a fairly rapid judgement as to whether one or more duty holders are likely to have been in breach and then whether to apply the resources to collect the evidence for enforcement action. Which means looking at a fraction of the rabbit holes.

Whereas the employer could be looking more closely at how it operates to see if there is room for improvement. This is arguably MORE difficult when a suicide has happened than if the harm is less severe and the individual and their nearest and dearest are keen to see some action (OTHER than victim blaming).

There are, of course, exceptions to every rule. So, HSE might see something where there is a lesson to be learned beyond the duty holders at the locus.  

Putting reporting back into the equation, if the stated French position were to be applied, in effect the person reporting is "guilty" until proved innocent which would be a reversal of a basic tenet of criminal justice in the UK and many other jurisdictions.

The baying mob begins...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/22/work-related-suicides-should-investigated-watchdog-unions-say

Roundtuit

Do you expect anything less!

Every so often something bad happens. The cry goes out ”Something must be done!”. The government then rushes a piece of ill thought legislation out, nowadays names after the victim -the “Bo peep act”-an act to make sure  that  never again will Bo peep lose her sheep etc!  the expectations are total and absolute and they never work. At least Health and Safety at Work Act is realistic in its requirements.

More useful wouild be for someone to commission research on why some people commit suicide and why as society we have created a rod for our own backs where anything less than 110% is classed as a failure.

And of course 'work-related' would need some extra definition, too. Would it cover someone who commited suicide because their employer ceased trading and they lost their job for instance .. certainly 'work-related'. Can't see this happening in the UK, for all the reasons given above by others. 

Bonjour tout le monde [everyone]

I'm wearing my Guardianista's hat and would therefore be in oppostion to most of the above conclusions.

I believe the HSE should face up to the need for suicides to be reported and investigated. There is sufficient research already to define work related suicides[eg France and the USA, etc] and methods of dealing with suicides in practice --lots of examples and cases here in France of brutal harassment [Orange/France Telecom privatisation] I think the HSE are hopelessly wrong rejecting the investigation, etc of both suicides and work related deaths on the roads. And it probably isn't just lack of resources, more a sort of capture or decades of taking a back seat.

[There is probably a parliamentary draftsman with a set of regulations 'oven ready' dealing with both subjects]

Regards

Mike

PS Look at the numbers via Prof Sarah Waters/Hilda Palmer

HSE has been rather coy recently but according to the TUC tacking-workplace-stress-guide.pdf (tuc.org.uk) the HSE Stress Management Standards were launched in 2004. This date is no longer visible on the HSE website pages on the topic.

Since which time I don't think HSE has ever enforced these Standards by e.g. prosecution or enforcement notice, though it is difficult to confirm as the detail on the HSE prosecutions databases often fails to include the "case summary" to provide some explanation of the rationale for why a specific case have been taken.

As has been indicated you would expect HSE (or other enforcing authority) to investigate most if not all of RIDDOR reportable fatal accidents.

Indeed in Scotland there is legislation directing that a Fatal Accident Inquiry be held following every fatal accident at work UNLESS the case can be adequately disposed of in some other public hearing - so that for example if such an accident results in a prosecution, sometimes this is used as a substitute for an FAI.

In practice, the need to inform the Procurator Fiscal in advance of such a hearing means that the enforcing authorities investigate all the incidents that appear to be fatal accidents at work, and certainly in the past, we erred on the safe side and left it to the Procurator Fiscal to decide NOT to hold an FAI if they concluded that an incident might not be work-related.

So, as example one Tuesday I went out to get details of the circumstances in which a roofer had fallen to his death from the roof of the building in which he lived the previous day. At least arguably he had been in the course of his self-employment as there was an informal agreement in place that he would do minor repairs on behalf of himself and the other occupants of the building, who collectively might be a non-domestic client with duties under Sections 3 or 4 of HSWA. 

This was never going to go to prosecution as the primary duty holder was dead and had fallen with a very high blood-alcohol content the morning after the night before. 

But nevertheless, we treated it as work-related and duly submitted a short report to the Fiscal. There was no FAI to my knowledge and my guess is that the PF's office decided to treat the incident as not work-related.

So, even with a fatal accident the lines can be blurred as to the issue of whether the incident was work-related.

This is MUCH more difficult when it comes to deciding whether stress is work-related whatever the severity of outcome with suicide at the top level of severity.

This doesn't mean that I don't think that the HSE shouldn't be investigating suicides that appear to be potentially work-related. I do think they should, and probably in past times HSE would have been keener to take a more proactive position.

But it would be a huge step to legislate to force the HSE to investigate any suicide that might just possibly have work as one element of the scenario. All that would be likely to result would be even thinner investigations across the board and less investigations of outcomes that are clearly work-related which would be in the public interest but where the HSE has discretion to investigate or not.

....and even in past times, HSE did use that discretion to decide against investigations, particularly when resources were strained to the limit.

On the day the roofer died, I completed investigating another fatal accident that occurred the previous week. Plumber fell from the top of a stairwell whilst trying to access a roofspace.

On the Wednesday, I started the investigation after a scaffolder fell through a rooflight continuing the following day taking statements that would support the prosecution of Client, Main Contractor and scaffolding Sub-contractor.

Then on Friday morning it was another accident investigation (I can't remember the details!) before returning to the office only to be sent out again as a tripod had fallen off a roof, narrowly missing the passers by below.

Come Monday, the Area Director thought that I should be investigating another accident as it was in the "public interest" to do so, but my boss put his foot down and said that I had too many investigations on the go and he wanted these done properly, not MORE done to a lesser standard.

Take away the discretion and all that will happen is that HSE will find ways of deciding to close out more investigations without proceeding to enforcement. In terms of work-related stress and some suicides that result from such stress (in part or full) removing the discretion would probably be counter-productive.

Instead, perhaps, questions should be asked as to why HSE seems to have dropped any real interest in enforcing this aspect of work-related H&S.

Edited by user 25 May 2023 15:30:56(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified