April is Stress Awareness Month in the UK, and the theme for 2025 is #LeadWithLove. The annual awareness campaign, observed every April since 1992, aims to increase public awareness of the causes of stress and effective measures to reduce it. The Stress Management Society is at the forefront of this campaign, setting the focus...
Five years on from Covid, IOSH calls for pandemic planning
Five years on from the outbreak of Covid-19, the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) has called for pandemic planning, prevention and preparedness to be prioritised. It’s been five years since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Covid-19 a global pandemic on 11th March 2020. Next Wednesday, 26th March, will also mark five...
Firm fined £1 million after workers suffered serious injuries
A wood manufacturing firm has been fined more than £1 million after two of its workers suffered “very serious injuries” in separate incidents. West Fraser (Europe) Ltd, formerly known as Norbord, is a multi-national manufacturer of wood-based products. They appeared at Stirling Sheriff Court in February to plead guilty to breaching health and safety...
Government announces abolition of NHS England
In a surprise move last week, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced that his government are abolishing NHS England in a bid to cut bureaucracy and save money. The Prime Minister said his plan to abolish NHS England would bring the health service back into government control, save hundreds of millions of pounds every...
New framework launched to reduce health inequalities
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has launched a new framework to help reduce health inequalities. The health and care watchdog worked in partnership with National Voices and the Point of Care Foundation to develop a self-assessment and improvement framework to help Integrated Care Systems (ICSs) address health inequalities. Integrated care systems (ICSs) are local...
Neurodiversity Celebration Week celebrates different minds
It’s Neurodiversity Celebration Week (17th – 23rd March 2025), which encourages everyone to celebrate neurological differences and recognise the talents and strengths of neurodivergent individuals. Neurodiversity Celebration Week is a global initiative founded in the UK in 2018 by Siena Castellon MBE, who has campaigned to support young people with special educational needs (SEN)...
New Skills for Care campaign supports managers in care
Skills for Care have launched their new campaign to support managers in care. The national care workforce development charity will be running the ‘Managing your service’ campaign throughout March to support registered managers, nominated individuals and care organisation directors to manage their services effectively. The campaign has been devised to empower leaders and managers...
Mental health training for managers has ‘significant benefits’, says IOSH
Greater mental health training for managers could bring “significant benefits”, helping to enhance employee wellbeing and business performance, according to IOSH. The Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) recently published a blog post by its Senior Policy and Public Affairs Manager, Ceri Finnegan, in which she identified a lack of manager training as...
HSE: 50 years of strengthening workplace health and safety
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) recently celebrated 50 years of workplace health and safety regulation. On 1st January 2025, Britain’s health and safety watchdog marked the 50th anniversary of its official launch. Created by the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, and launched on 1st January 1975, the regulator has spent...
Calls for child safety checks on generative AI products
Almost 4 in 5 adults want child safety checks on new generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) products, according to a recent poll. The NSPCC says that polling reveals that 78% of the UK public would opt for child safety checks on the new technology, which uses AI to generate new content, including images and...
Anxiety is the top mental health concern for children
Childline has revealed that almost 1 in 4 children who undergo counselling sessions for mental health are struggling with anxiety. The charity helpline delivered over 6,600 counselling sessions related to anxiety in the 6 months between April and October 2024 (the first half of 2024-25). This represented 24% of all counselling sessions the helpline...
Children’s Mental Health Week 2025: self-awareness builds resilience
It’s Place2Be’s Children’s Mental Health Week 2025 in the UK (3rd-9th February), and this year’s theme is Know Yourself, Grow Yourself. The leading children’s mental health charity has partnered with Here4You, supported by the Walt Disney Company and the characters of Inside Out 2, for this year’s awareness campaign. Here4You supports young people’s mental...
Time to Talk Day 2025: the nation’s biggest mental health conversation
Taking place on 6th February 2025, Time to Talk Day is a day for friends, families, communities and workplaces to come together and talk about mental health. Spearheaded by leading mental health charities Mind and Rethink Mental Illness, in partnership with Co-op, Time to Talk Day encourages people to make time for a real...
Every action counts this Race Equality Week
Next week, 3rd – 9th February 2025, is Race Equality Week 2025, and this year the theme is #EveryActionCounts. The annual UK-wide initiative was established by community interest company, Race Equality Matters (REM), following the seismic and devastating events of 2020. It aims to address the barriers to race equality in the workplace and...
Achieving better care for people with learning disabilities and autistic people
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has been leading on a project to review the care and treatment that people with learning disabilities and autistic people receive. Britain’s care watchdog was asked by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to lead Independent Care (Education) and Treatment Reviews (ICTR) over the next two years...