All employers have a general duty of care under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 to ensure the health, safety and welfare of their employees so far as is reasonably practicable. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 require all employers to assess and manage all risks to which employees are exposed at work including any risks of stress related injury.

By complying with the regulations employers will not only reduce the incidence of work-related stress in schools but they will also protect themselves from claims for psychiatric injury that may arise from breach of the regulations irrespective of negligence.

There is a lot of helpful guidance on managing stress in general but we would like to emphasise the use of the risk management approach.

This includes identifying the specific stress risk hazards in your workplace:

• deciding who might be at risk;
• evaluating the actual level of risk;
• recording what action needs to be taken to avoid or reduce the risk, and monitoring and reviewing to ensure your measures are effective

For further guidance use the HSE website the address of which is given in the sources of help section.