Content note: This article discusses suicide and work-related suicide.
Work has been one of the greatest protective factors in my life.
With the exception of a couple of blips which gave me an insight into a whole world of pain, work has given me purpose when I’ve lacked direction, friendships that have lasted decades, opportunities to travel the world, challenges that have stretched me and a sense that what I do matters. During some of the hardest periods of my life (and there have been some!), work has often been the thing that got me out of bed in the morning.
I know that won’t be everyone’s experience, and certainly, those couple of “blips” also exposed me also to the harm work can do. The dreading Monday, the trying every way possible to deal with the toxic boss (and feeling even more useless when I didn’t succeed), the sleepless nights, the loss of confidence, the bleed into my home life of the stress and anxiety.
The idea that work can affect our psychological wellbeing isn’t new, but conversations about psychosocial risk, healthy work and organisational stress have started to become much more common.
Which brings me to the question this article poses.
If there is evidence that work may have become so harmful that it contributed to somebody taking their own life, what should happen next?
A few years ago, I interviewed Professor Sarah Waters from the University of Leeds about her research into work-related suicide. At the time, I found it fascinating. I filed it away as an important piece of research and got on with life.
When the UK regulator, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), recently launched a public consultation on reportable work-related injuries (RIDDOR), the subject came back onto my radar. The HSE proposes to continue to exclude suicide as a reportable incident that employers are required to report.
One of the responses came in the form of an open letter published in the BMJ. It was written by Professor Sarah Waters, Professor Martin McKee, Professor Emerita Julia Waters — sister of headteacher Ruth Perry — Ged Flynn, Chief Executive of PAPYRUS, and Rory O’Neill of the International Trade Union Confederation and Hazards Magazine, on behalf of a further 27 signatories. Those signatories included Professor Neil Greenberg, President of the Society of Occupational Medicine; Ian Lavery MP, Chair of the APPG on Occupational Safety and Health; Liz Twist MP, Chair of the APPG on Suicide and Self-Harm Prevention; Professor Ann John, a leading suicide prevention researcher; and Hilda Palmer, co-founder of Families Against Corporate Killing. Their request was that suspected work-related suicide should be considered for inclusion within the revised RIDDOR regulations.
HSE’s initial response, prior to the letter, had been that neither work-related stress nor work-related suicide would be included and they confirmed that “HSE does not currently plan to introduce psychological ill‑health conditions or potential work‑related suicide”. In response to the letter published in the BMJ, it has now confirmed that it will consider this….
When I heard about this, I immediately looked around for where this conversation was happening in health and safety/workplace wellbeing. I really couldn’t find it.
Instead, most of the discussion took place elsewhere. Occupational medicine discussed it. Suicide prevention organisations discussed it. The BMJ.
As I started talking to people, I realised the silence wasn’t because they disagreed with the proposal. Some simply didn’t know enough about it to have a view. That’s entirely understandable. Work-related suicide sits at the intersection of Health & Safety, occupational health, mental health, employment law and suicide prevention. It is however something BSI have produced an excellent standard (toolkit for organisations) on.
That’s why I’m writing this article. Not because I expect everyone to agree that work-related suicide should become reportable under RIDDOR, but because I think health, safety and wellbeing professionals need to understand the proposal well enough to decide where it stands.
I think one of the reasons this conversation hasn't gained more traction, is that many people have questions about what is actually being proposed.
The first reaction is often, "How could an employer possibly decide whether work caused somebody's suicide?" It's a fair question. Suicide is complex and rarely the result of a single factor.
But that isn’t what’s being proposed.
The proposal is to create a mechanism for reporting cases where there is credible evidence that work may have been a contributing factor, allowing the appropriate authorities to decide whether further investigation is warranted. A RIDDOR report would simply ensure that cases meeting an agreed threshold are recognised and considered, rather than disappearing from view altogether.
Professor Sarah Waters and her colleagues examined twelve cases where coroners, public inquiries and other official processes had already identified substantial work-related factors.
These were twelve cases that met the researchers' criteria and for which sufficient evidence was available to analyse. The Hazards Campaign estimate that over 600 UK suicide deaths every year are work-related.. Whether that estimate ultimately proves accurate or not, the uncomfortable truth is that we simply don't know: because suspected work-related suicides are not routinely recognised or counted.
The question is whether, in the cases where there are clear indicators that work may have played a significant part, there should be a formal mechanism for reporting those cases and investigating them to decide whether organisational lessons can be learned.
What might that evidence look like? The proposal isn’t asking employers to speculate or to decide whether work caused somebody’s suicide. Professor Sarah Waters’ research examined cases where work-related factors had already been identified through official processes and where there was extensive material evidence linking work to the death. That included evidence identified by coroners, doctors or employers. In one case, a university lecturer took his own life in the workplace after years of documented concerns about unmanageable workload. In another, an apprentice mechanic had repeatedly reported workplace bullying, with those concerns also raised by his parents before his death. These are the kinds of cases the proposal is seeking to ensure are recognised and considered, rather than passing through the system without any opportunity to ask whether wider lessons can be learned.
One question I’ve been asked several times is whether, if I support work-related suicide becoming reportable under RIDDOR, I also think work-related stress should be reportable.
I don’t believe so.
Not because work-related stress isn’t important—it clearly is—but because I think that is much more practically challenging.
Work-related stress exists on a spectrum. It develops over time, has many different causes. Even if we accepted the principle, deciding when reporting should be triggered would be extremely difficult.
Suspected work-related suicide raises a different question. It involves a clearly defined and profoundly devastating event for families, with significant health and safety implications for the workplace.
Other countries have shown that this is possible. France is probably the best-known example, but it isn’t alone. Australia and New Zealand have recently changed their regulations to make suicide reportable as a potential work-related death. None of these countries claims that work is ever the sole cause of suicide, and none asks employers to prove causation before a report is made. Instead, they recognise something Health & Safety professionals already understand: serious events are often the result of multiple interacting factors, and investigation exists to improve understanding.
At this point, it’s reasonable to ask whether another reporting mechanism is actually needed. After all, when someone dies there may already be a coroner’s inquest. Coroners can establish the circumstances surrounding a death and, where appropriate, issue a Prevention of Future Deaths report recommending action to reduce the risk of similar deaths.
So what would RIDDOR add?
I think the answer lies in the different purposes of the two systems.
A coroner’s role is to understand the circumstances of an individual death. Health and Safety has always had a broader purpose: to identify patterns, understand organisational failures and prevent similar harm occurring elsewhere. RIDDOR isn’t about proving causation or assigning blame. It is the point at which potentially work-related harm enters the Health and Safety system, allowing HSE to decide whether further investigation is appropriate and whether there are wider lessons to be learned.
The France Télécom (Orange) case illustrates the difference. The issue wasn’t simply understanding why individual employees had died. It was recognising a pattern of suicides associated with organisational change and management practices, investigating whether work had been a significant contributing factor and examining what that meant for the organisation as a whole.
If there is credible evidence that work may have played a significant role in a person’s death, should there be a mechanism that allows those cases to enter the Health and Safety system so that, where appropriate, they can be investigated and the lessons shared more widely?
For many people, the link between work and suicide became a public concern following the suicide death of headteacher Ruth Perry and the long and determined campaign led by her family to seek justice and accountability.
In this instance, work and more specifically, the impact of a flawed school inspection, was identified as a singular causal factor and the coroner concluded that the suicide death was “contributed to by an Ofsted inspection”.
The campaign to reform Ofsted put the spotlight on the extreme work-related stress and psychological harm generated by school inspections.
Yet, the focus in some parts of the media on suicide as an Ofsted issue might risk missing a bigger question. The distress that can lead to suicide is an issue affecting all occupations, sectors and workplaces.
If there is credible evidence that work may have played a significant part in someone’s death, should our health and safety framework have a mechanism for recognising that possibility, investigating where appropriate and learning any wider lessons?
If we only ever see work-related suicide through the lens of individual cases or individual organisations, we risk overlooking the broader question that sits behind them.
HSE is increasingly taking steps to prevent work related stress by asking organisations to identify psychosocial hazards, assess the risks they create and take steps to prevent harm. We expect employers to think about workload, bullying, organisational change, management capability and workplace culture in a way that would have been far less common a decade ago.
In other words, while somebody is alive, we’re increasingly recognising that work can damage mental health.
Yet if there is credible evidence that those same work-related factors may have contributed to somebody’s death, our Health and Safety reporting system has no routine mechanism for bringing those cases into the same cycle of reporting, investigation, learning and prevention that exists for other forms of serious work-related harm.
Whether or not the proposal is ultimately adopted, I’ve got to ask, why this isn’t a conversation health, safety and wellbeing professionals are having?
Health and safety professionals are required to face difficult questions. Whether suspected work-related suicide should become reportable under RIDDOR is one of those questions.
You may conclude the answer is yes. You may conclude the answer is no. My hope is simply that Health & Safety and Workplace Wellbeing professionals become part of the conversation, rather than leaving it to those outside the profession - researchers, occupational medicine, campaign groups and politicians.
If this article has prompted questions, challenged your thinking or made you look at the issue differently, I’d genuinely like to hear from you. Do you think suspected work-related suicide should become reportable under RIDDOR? If not, why not? If so, what questions still need answering? Please comment below.
Over the coming months I’ll be speaking to professionals from across Health & Safety, Workplace Wellbeing and Occupational Health, and I’ll be running a further webinar with Professor Sarah Waters to continue this conversation. I’ll also be sharing different perspectives, addressing some of the questions raised and exploring what role our profession should play.
If, having considered the evidence, you believe suspected work-related suicide should be considered for inclusion within RIDDOR, I’ve included links below to further reading and to the HSE postcard campaign so that you can decide for yourself whether you want to add your voice.
If you’d like to explore the evidence and reach your own conclusion, I’d recommend starting with the following resources.
Open letter to the Health and Safety Executive on work-related suicides (BMJ)
https://www.bmj.com/content/394/bmj-2026-100139University of Leeds – Background to the BMJ letter, full list of signatories and campaign information
https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/media/news/article/3116/british-medical-journal-publishes-letter-by-faculty-researcher-calling-for-action-on-work-related-suicideCurrent HSE guidance on RIDDOR (including the exclusion of suicide)
https://www.hse.gov.uk/riddor/types-of-reportable-incidents.htmBritish Standards PAS 3040 – Prevention and management of work-related suicide in the workplace
https://knowledge.bsigroup.com/products/prevention-and-management-of-work-related-suicide-in-the-workplace-guide
If, having considered the evidence, you believe suspected work-related suicide should be considered for inclusion within RIDDOR, there are several ways you can help.
Support the Hazards Campaign HSE e-postcard campaign.
Watch my webinar from 2022 with Professor Sarah Waters
Join our forthcoming webinar with Professor Sarah Waters and Steve Phillips of the Jordan Legacy
Share this article with colleagues and ask them: Should Health & Safety have a stronger voice in this debate?
Leave a comment below. Whether you support the proposal or oppose it, I’d genuinely like to understand your perspective and the questions you think our profession still needs to answer.
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