Motor trade organisations have joined forces with HSE's Working Minds campaign to tackle work-related stress in the motor vehicle repair trade ahead of Christmas.
HSE’s Working Minds campaign, together with partners, the National Body Repair Association (NBRA), the commercial Vehicle Body Repair Association (VBRA), the Independent Garage Association (IGA), and Ben, are working together to provide information and advice to make sure that employers and workers know what support is available in the run-up to Christmas.
Ben, a charity that supports workers throughout the automotive industry, has reported an increase in people asking for help during the winter months.
The current economic climate is also having an effect, with a 190% increase in people using Ben’s financial guidance and benefits counselling services this year.
Ellen Plumer, Head of Outreach, Health and Wellbeing at Ben, said: “Each year thousands of people come to Ben with mental health issues as their primary concern. From the results of the latest survey of those in the automotive industry, 1 in 2 workers has struggled in the past 12 months.
"Stress is the most common issue, followed by anxiety and poor sleep. Work is a big part of life so it’s important to make people feel like they matter, are heard and feel supported.”
Read our press release for more information.
Help and resources
If a worker is having problems, encourage them to talk to someone, whether it’s their line manager, trade union representative or GP.
Helpful links include:
HSE has advice on keeping people as comfortable as possible when working in the cold.
Our guidance has been refreshed to make it easier to find and understand advice on how to protect workers in low temperatures.
The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations require employers to provide a reasonable indoor temperature in the workplace.
The guidance explains how you can assess the risks to workers and put controls in place to protect them.
There is a workplace temperature checklist to help you carry out a basic risk assessment.
HSE recently published the latest annual health and safety statistics for Great Britain.
There were approximately 17 million working days lost across Great Britain in 2021/22, and an estimated 914,000 cases of work absence due to work-related stress, depression, or anxiety, which was an 11% increase from the previous year.
The annual report by HSE also found that 1.8 million working people are suffering from work-related ill health and that 123 workers were killed at work in this time period.
HSE's statistics website provides detailed commentary on these figures and is supported by:
For more information you can read our press release, which includes comments from Sarah Albon, HSE Chief Executive.
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