News & Articles

The government's department of health has launched a 5-minute health quiz that reveals personalised steps to boost mood and energy.

After answering all the questions on a range of topics including nutrition, movement, alcohol consumption, smoking and mental health, users will get an overall score out of 10 with tailored advice.

The quick quiz is designed to identify what changes a person can make to their lifestyle to be healthier and signpost NHS resources to support this change.

Research from University College London estimates that 19 million adults in their middle years could boost their mood by making a healthy change. Increasing physical activity can improve mental wellbeing in just four weeks.

The quiz supports the government’s 10 Year Health Plan to shift the NHS from treating sickness to preventing it.

Health Minister Ashley Dalton said: “Taking this quick and easy quiz could be the first step for people to live healthier and happier lives.”

Dr Radha Modgil said the quiz helps people understand where they’re at and offers manageable tips.

To kick off the new year, the government will also be implementing a new digital NHS points scheme where people are rewarded for taking positive actions to improve their health.

Lawyers have joined unions to hail the passing of the employment rights bill into law as ‘the biggest upgrade on workers’ rights in a generation’.

The Bill gained Royal Assent last week on 18 December after a period of wrangling over some key details with the House of Lords.

Luke Bowery, partner at law firm Burges Salmon, said: “In passing the Employment Rights Act, Parliament has fired the starting gun on the biggest overhaul of employment law in decades.

“The Act will reshape almost every aspect of the employment relationship — from contracts to dismissal - creating new rights for workers and significant obligations for employers.”

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak called it a “landmark day for millions of workers”, with the Act representing the biggest upgrade in workers’ rights in a generation.

“It will deliver common sense changes like banning exploitative zero hours contracts, protecting workers from harassment and sick pay for all – and so much more,” he said.

Business and trade secretary Peter Kyle said: “This landmark legislation will drag Britain’s outdated employment laws into the 21st century and offer dignity and respect to millions more in the workplace.”

The Employment Rights Act introduces rights to guaranteed hours and payment for short-notice cancellation of shifts. It will bar fire-and-rehire practices in most circumstances, grant paternity and parental leave from day one, and strengthen workplace trade union rights.

The day-one right to protection against unfair dismissal has been removed as a concession to business and replaced with a shortened qualifying period of six months, down from two years.

New rights will start to be implemented from April, with the government publishing a roadmap with reforms planned to be introduced in a phased approach over the next two years.

The government said more than 15 million people across the UK would be set to benefit from the new worker protections, including 32,000 more dads and partners each year who will have the right to take paternity leave and 1.5m more parents able to take unpaid parental leave.

Employees going through the toughest personal circumstances will also be afforded dignity at work, with up to 2.7m employees a year gaining the right to a new bereavement leave entitlement.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the Act sets in motion an increase in living standards, supporting productivity and providing more security and dignity for people in work, adding: “When we said we’d bring work into the 21st century, we meant it – and today we’ve delivered it.”

Traffic wardens in one local council are being sent out to patrol in groups because of threats and abuse.

Milton Keynes City Council took the decision after staff issuing penalty tickets in Bletchley faced “abuse, threats, intimidation and physical abuse” from drivers.

According to the BBC, the authority said civil enforcement officers now often have to work in groups for safety reasons.

Pete Marland, Labour leader of Milton Keynes City Council, said it was completely unacceptable the council had to take extraordinary measures to protect staff because of the level of verbal and physical abuse experienced in the area.

“Officers are being deployed in teams of two and three for their own safety because they are doing work the local community is asking them to do,” he said.

Local newspaper MK Citizen reported that sixteen parking tickets a day have been issued in Bletchley and Fenny Stratford so far in December.

The paper said the figures reflect a crackdown on anti-social parking in the town, with enforcement action focusing on known hotspots.

The Labour council is also set to invest £30 million to improve the area, with plans including permanent preventative parking measures, better lighting and wayfinding, more trees, and bike hub lockups.

Marland said he hoped the area would become “nicer and safer” for people to visit, adding that parking had become an issue and that the council dedicates significant resources to dealing with illegal parking in Bletchley.

Senior safety professionals who can influence culture, lead transformation, and align health and safety with wider business goals are in growing demand by employers, recruiter Irwin & Colton have said.

Partner Michael Colton said construction, infrastructure, and manufacturing are where most of these roles are being advertised. These are sectors where organisations increasingly view safety as a “core ESG metric.”

Writing for the recruiter’s blog, Colton added that hybrid HSE and ESG roles are also on the increase, with positions blending safety with environmental and sustainability responsibilities.

Professionals with experience in carbon management, ethical supply chains, and social impact are therefore finding new opportunities in evolving, multi-disciplinary roles, he said.

The recruiter also said the percentage of new vacancies in health and safety rose by at least 10 per cent in October after a period of uncertainty reflecting an unstable economic climate.

“After a muted first half of the year, the recent uptick in hiring activity feels significant, not just a blip,” said Michael Colton. “Whether this proves to be the start of a sustained recovery or a short-lived surge remains to be seen, but momentum is building again.”

He added: “For both employers and professionals, now is the time to re-engage with the market, refine strategies, and prepare for what’s next.”

Pressure to drink at work events is contributing to widespread alcohol-related absences and reduced productivity across all sectors, according to a new report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).

From after-work drinks to subsidised bar tabs at company events, alcohol is often embedded in professional life. A quarter of workers said they sometimes felt pressured to drink when they didn’t want to, rising to 38 per cent among younger employees aged 18 to 24. Over a third said drinking at work events excluded non-drinkers or created cliques.

The culture is driving real consequences. One in three UK workers have called in sick in the past year after drinking at work-related events, while more than one in five reported working while hungover, and nearly a third observed colleagues being tired or sluggish after drinking.

While Gen Z may be drinking less overall, the report finds they are disproportionately affected by workplace alcohol harm.

Dr Jamie O’Halloran, senior research fellow at IPPR, said alcohol harm should be treated as a national economic issue, warning that high levels of sickness absence among young professionals represent a productivity crisis.

The research shows that nearly half of 18 to 24-year-olds reported calling in sick after drinking at work-related events, and over a third said they felt pressured to drink to fit in or progress professionally.

The report also found that heavy drinkers aged between 21 and 64 are over three times more likely to exhibit presenteeism, meaning they are physically at work but operating below capacity.

Despite the scale of the issue, most workplaces are doing too little to address alcohol-related harm. Over half of employees said their employer had provided no guidance, training, or inclusive alternatives, while nearly three-quarters believe employers have a responsibility to reduce alcohol harm.

The report calls for employers to create more inclusive workplace cultures, offer alcohol-free alternatives at events, and embed alcohol harm into HR and wellbeing policies.

Sebastian Rees, head of health at IPPR, said employers have an opportunity to improve wellbeing, performance, and inclusion by shifting away from alcohol-centric workplace cultures.

HSE inspectors made a series of proactive inspections last week in Manchester city centre to tackle ill-health on construction sites.

The 12 inspectors visited various businesses and sites on Tuesday 21 October to look at their management of health and safety risks, particularly asbestos, musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), noise and dust.

Construction has some of the highest rates of MSDs, alongside transport and administrative work, says HSE. Previous inspections have also found that many noisy workplaces lack knowledge about using and maintaining hearing protection equipment.

Workers in skilled trades are at particular risk of discovering and disturbing asbestos when working on properties built before the year 2000.

HSE principal inspector Kevin Jones, who helped lead the team, said: “Manchester is home to some of the biggest construction projects in the country.”

“By its nature, construction is a high hazard industry. It can be noisy and dusty, with people often working at height and around heavy machinery and vehicles.”

HSE said inspections will be focused more on health priorities this year, committing to deliver 14,000 proactive inspections in its Business Plan for 2025-26. Of these, 8,000 will have to meet health priorities in asbestos, noise, MSDs and hazardous dust, and also mental health.

The goal is just short of last year’s total when over 14,700 inspections were completed, but a significant reduction on the 16,800 workplaces inspected in 2022/23.

HSE has also said it wants speedier enforcement of inspection findings, aiming to reduce the time it takes to instigate enforcement action and close out investigations. It said it will complete investigations swiftly and commit further resources only when there is evidence of likely enforcement or a clear opportunity for industry-wide learning.

Kevin Jones added: “We need to see that there are good control measures in place and that the health and safety of workers is at the top of the agenda for everyone.”

Younger workers feel they’ve been ‘cast adrift’ by their employer in the shift to home and hybrid working, according to a new survey, with a third of 18 to 24-year-olds saying home working leaves them feeling demotivated.

More than two-fifths of the 1,044 young workers polled by Opinion Matters for IOSH fear fewer face-to-face interactions are restricting their personal and professional development.

Even for those who attend the office every day, workplace relationships appear to have suffered. Of this group, 39 per cent reported that the shift towards hybrid and remote working has made connecting with colleagues harder.

The survey also found that a quarter of young workers feel cut off from their workplace community. One in six said their wellbeing has worsened, with more than a quarter reporting feeling disconnected from colleagues and workplace culture.

IOSH President Kelly Nicoll said businesses must do more to engage their newest workers so they can reach their potential and help businesses thrive.

She said managers should build in more structured supervision time and regular check-ins with young and hybrid workers, rather than only having contact once a month. This should include daily informal catch-ups and weekly and monthly one-to-one sessions to cover performance and wider issues such as health, safety and wellbeing, as well as mentoring, coaching and career development.

When asked what would help younger workers succeed, structured check-ins with managers topped the list, followed by wellbeing and mental health support. Young people also said they wanted clearer career development pathways and more face-to-face collaboration.

Writer and broadcaster Natasha Devon said employers should take retaining younger workers seriously to remain competitive, adding that understanding how Gen Z experiences work differently from older generations is a good starting point.

A Green Party peer has called for a new amendment in the forthcoming Employment Rights Bill requiring the government to publish a review of the impact of high temperatures on workplace health and safety.

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle referenced the recent heatwave across Europe, which killed 2,300 people in 12 major cities, and said it was estimated to have caused several hundred deaths in London. She said the climate emergency means temperatures have been significantly higher than normal.

Bennett also pointed to an increase in so-called tropical nights, saying people struggle to rest and that this can have a cumulative effect on workers’ health.

Her proposed clause would require the government to consider setting a maximum legal temperature for workplaces, similar to approaches in countries such as Spain and Germany.

The amendment comes as safety representatives across the UK were urged to carry out temperature inspections in workplaces including factories, hospitals, warehouses and schools.

The TUC, which ran the initiative, is calling for a new maximum indoor temperature of 30°C and guidance asking employers to begin taking steps to reduce temperatures when they rise above 24°C and workers feel uncomfortable.

During inspections throughout July and August, nearly six in 10 reps recorded temperatures above 27°C at some point during the working day.

In over half of inspections, reps reported a lack of adequate ventilation, with some workplaces relying only on small desk fans or open windows.

Reps also shared accounts of colleagues feeling faint, suffering headaches, or needing more frequent breaks just to cool down.

The Employment Rights Bill is due to return to the House of Commons in September for MPs to consider Bennett's and other Lords’ amendments.

The Bill includes measures such as stronger protections from workplace harassment, efforts to end exploitative zero-hours contracts, new safeguards for parents including bereavement leave linked to pregnancy loss, and an expanded right to flexible working.

In a joint call, the TUC and a range of equality and advocacy groups said the legislation is badly needed.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on work practices was a significant feature of HSE’s AGM, where the regulator presented its work and priorities.

Questions were taken from the floor at the live-streamed event on 29 July, including from Rob McGill, national health and safety officer at Unite. He said there was excessive use of AI to monitor workers in workplaces he had visited and asked HSE what it was doing about the problem.

HSE chief executive Sarah Albon said monitoring workers was not ‘Big Brother’ unless its use broadened beyond the purpose of safety.

“Failing to wear PPE, stepping out of a safe area — AI can provide much more immediate, quicker surveillance which can protect that worker,” she said.

However, she added that communication and consultation should take place with unions in advance.

Albon said the regulator was compiling a database of real-world examples of AI across the industry sectors it regulates. This would be used as a repository to support the development of insights relevant to the risk assessment of AI applications in industrial settings.

Earlier, Chair of the HSE Board Sarah Newton told attendees that the regulator was also using different AI language models to understand risk profiles across the construction sector.

She said this helps HSE identify mismatches between the hazards causing workplace incidents and the risks inspectors commonly focus on during site visits. She added that this work had been expanded beyond construction and is being used to analyse risks within the major hazards sector.

HSE also said it is adopting new technologies and data analytics to target inspections, assess risks, and modernise systems.

Its continuing focus areas include asbestos, noise, musculoskeletal issues and stress, with newer work looking at the impact of “forever chemicals”, including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in fire-fighting foams.