STRESS & WORK RELATED DISEASES
“THE HSE HAS CALCULATED THE COST OF STRESS, DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY IN THE UK AT AS MUCH AS £3.6 BILLION PER YEAR.”
RELIEVE SOME PRESSURE
Occupational stress has come under the spotlight – and some would say out of the shadows of the health and safety world – in recent years. Adrian Hirst, President-elect of the British Occupational Hygiene Society (BOHS), draws attention to the fact that stress can, and should, be managed in the workplace.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Labour Force Survey estimates that there were 428,000 cases of stress caused or made worse by work, including 221,000 new and 207,000 pre-existing cases in 2011/12.
More recent estimates from HSE suggest that stress, anxiety and depression account for over one-third of all new cases of ill-health and one- third of all working days lost. To give
28
an idea of scale, in 2011/12, around 22.7 million working days were lost due to all work-related illnesses.
There is also evidence that self- reported stress is associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease, with work-related stress said to increase the risk of a heart attack by a factor of around 1.5.
The HSE has calculated the cost of stress, depression and anxiety in the
UK at as much as £3.6 billion per year. It is unsurprising, then, that a recent report by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) concluded that, contrary to popular belief, it costs far more to ignore work-related stress than to address it.
OUT OF THE SHADOWS In April 2014, the EU-OSHA launched its new Healthy Workplaces campaign for 2014 and 2015,
www.tomorrowshs.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52