Employment: Coronavirus

(asked on 1st March 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, pursuant to the Answers of 26 February 2021 Questions 155053 and 155054 on Coronavirus and with reference to Table 1 of the Health and Safety Executive's Enforcement Management Model, if she will define what constitutes a credible risk that a fatal injury or injury that results in a permanent or irreversible disabling condition, or requires immediate treatment in hospital, or causes a permanent, progressive or irreversible condition, or causes permanent disabling, leading to a lifelong restriction of work capability or a major reduction in quality of life; and what the threshold is for meeting the criteria of credible.


Answered by
Mims Davies Portrait
Mims Davies
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 18th March 2021

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) rightly takes the risk of Covid-19 in the work place seriously. HSE inspectors will take any necessary actions to ensure compliance whenever they find employers who are not meeting the Government’s COVID-19 secure standards.

HSE’s Enforcement Management Model (EMM) provides a framework structure supporting consistent, sensible and proportionate decision making across a very wide range of health and safety at work risks. Regulators are expected to use their knowledge and experience as well as technical guidance to identify the categories that best fit the situation they are dealing with.

EMM Table 1 describes general consequence categories of “serious,” “significant,’ and “minor” injuries and health effects, for the purposes of applying the model to guide enforcement action in relation to breaches of health and safety law. This is a tool to guide proportionate enforcement outcomes so that businesses and other dutyholders are dealt with fairly and consistently.

EMM Table 1 states that a serious health effect is one which is “credible” will cause “a permanent, progressive or irreversible condition,” or be “permanently disabling, leading to a lifelong restriction of work capability or a major reduction in quality of life.”

For the purposes of this model, the general harm category for any given health risk is determined by the most credible (or most likely) health outcome, rather than the most serious outcome which may result.

Therefore, according to the model, the “credible outcome” for a worker’s health means the most likely health outcome when considering the working age population as a whole.

It should be remembered that the EMM is simply a model and does not restrict HSE’s inspectors from taking, where appropriate, the necessary enforcement action, including notices, to ensure that workplaces are COVID secure.

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