Stress Enforcement Notice

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has issued its first 'enforcement notice' against an NHS hospital, for failing to protect doctors and nurses from stress at work.

Christine Owen, head of health management consulting at Mercer Human Resource Consulting, thinks that the HSE's latest move places a significant burden on employers. "There is a real danger that employers undertake an isolated stress audit and identify problems but not solutions," she says. "Raising employee awareness of workplace stress without the resources to take corrective action is likely to cause employee relation problems."