Petition on UK work-related suicides sent to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE)

Professor Sarah Waters calls for recognition and monitoring of work-related suicides in the UK.

An international panel of experts led by Professor Sarah Waters in the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies, has written to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to call for a recognition and monitoring of work-related suicides in the UK. A petition statement signed by 17 researchers and specialists from seven different countries including the UK, France, Belgium, the US, Canada, Australia and Hong Kong has called on the HSE to bring the UK in line with other countries, by recognising work-related suicides and protecting the health and safety of workers.

In the UK, suicide is currently excluded from the list of work-related accidents that must be reported to the HSE for further investigation. Experts call on the HSE to rectify 'a grievous blind spot' in its regulations that 'exposes UK workers to risks to their health and safety that could be rectified by improved regulatory procedures'. Sarah Waters recently completed an AHRC fellowship on work-related suicides in France and her monograph 'Suicides Voices. Labour Trauma in France' will be published by Liverpool University Press in 2020.

Full details of the campaign are here: http://www.hazards.org/suicide/suicidenote.htm