Health and Safety at Work in UK Law

The objective of prosecutions for health and safety offences in the work place is to achieve a safe environment for those who work there and for other members of the public who may be affected. A fine needs to be large enough to bring that message home where the defendant is a company not only to those who manage it but also to its shareholders.

Here again, it is important to distinguish between signs of stress and signs of impending harm to health. Stress is merely the mechanism which may but usually does not lead to damage to health. If the employee or his doctor makes it plain that unless something is done to help there is a clear risk of a breakdown in mental or physical health, then the employer will have to think what can be done about it.

The first the school knew of any possible adverse effects upon his health of the difficulties at work which they were all experiencing was after his return. He simply told Mrs Hayward that he was not coping very well. This was just before the summer holidays, which are usually a source of relaxation and recuperation for hard-pressed teachers. Indeed he was unable to tell his own doctor about his symptoms until the month before the crisis arose.

It required every employer by section 2(1) to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of all his employees, and by section 3(1) to conduct his undertaking in such a way that other persons were not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety. The concept of safety was considered in this context in R v Chargot Ltd (trading as Contract Services) [2008] UKHL 73 [2009] 1 WLR 1.

Prima facie, his employer, or the person by whose undertaking he was liable to be affected, has failed to ensure his health and safety. This is likely to require more by way of evidence than simply an assertion that that state of affairs existed. Even where an injury has occurred it may not be enough for the prosecutor simply to assert that the injury demonstrates that there was a risk.

It is not its purpose to impose burdens on employers that are wholly unreasonable. Its aim is to spell out the basic duty of the employer to create a safe working environment. The law does not aim to create an environment that is entirely risk free. That, in effect, is what the word "risk" which the statute uses means. It is directed at situations where there is a material risk to health and safety, which any reasonable person would appreciate and take steps to guard against.

In these appeals, however, the parallel between the statutory right to paid annual leave and a contractual right to holidays with pay is to my mind much clearer and closer. It is not less close because of the Working Time Directive's emphasis on health and safety at work. Similar thinking has for many years informed the approach of responsible employers in framing contractual terms of employment. Moreover in each case the remedy would be an order for payment of the liquidated sum due.