Böcker av Trevor Hicks

The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) has commissioned recent research which has indicated that: . about half a million people in the UK experience work-related stress at a level they believe is making them ill; . up to 5 million people in the UK feel "very" or "extremely" stressed by their work; and . a total of 12.8 million working days were lost to stress, depression and anxiety in 2004/5. Work-related stress is therefore a serious problem and tackling it effectively can result in significant benefits for organizations. This can result in a happier and more productive workforce with fewer days away from work with stress related illnesses. Managers will also want to comply with recent HSE advice on managing stress within the workplace fulfilling their duty of care to employees. This should result in less exposure of organisations to the threat of litigation and the resultant negative publicity this causes. The intention of this book is to provide information to those who may be suffering from work related stress and to provide managers with a "toolkit" to help address such problems in the workforce.

'Nervous shock' cases form an area of law, which illustrates well the operation of judicial policy. It is possible from such cases to trace the changing attitudes of lawyers, doctors and of society in general to psychiatric injury over the last century. These cases also highlight the changing judicial attitudes to the scope of duty of care and to the whole issue of policy decisions.The recognition of nervous shock similarly illustrates the development of medical knowledge in relation to psychiatric injury. The recognition of Post traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) has been a relatively new and controversial phenomenon and this disorder has now been incorporated into the various classifications of mental disorder as a recognisable psychiatric illness.This book examines the development of the law and medical knowledge in relation to cases of nervous shock and in particular to PTSD. The expansion and subsequent contraction of liability is shown to be dynamic in nature, as both legal and medical knowledge have increased.The intention of this book is to provide a concise review of the law comparing it to current medical knowledge in relation to PTSD. The book is intended to be of use to professionals involved in psychiatric injury cases who require an up to date understanding of PTSD.