Managing shift work - Health and safety guidance

Managing shiftwork Health and safety guidance

This is a free-to-download, web-friendly version of HSG256 (published 2006). This version has been adapted for online use from HSE’s current printed version.

You can buy the book at www.hsebooks.co.uk and most good bookshops.

ISBN 978 0 7176 6197 8 Price £9.95

This book is for employers, safety representatives, trade union officials, employees, regulators and other stakeholders.

It explains employers’ legal duties to assess risks associated with shift work. It aims to improve understanding of shift work and its impact on health and safety by:

n providing advice on risk assessment, design of shift-work schedules and the shift-work environment; n suggesting measures employers, safety representatives and employees can use to reduce the negative impact of shift work; and n reducing tiredness, poor performance and accidents by enabling employers to control, manage and monitor the risks of shift work.

HSE Books Page 1 of 45

© Crown copyright 2006 First published 2006

ISBN 978 0 7176 6197 8

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

Applications for reproduction should be made in writing to: The Office of Public Sector Information, Information Policy Team, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 4DU or e-mail: licensing@opsi.gov.uk

This guidance is issued by the Health and Safety Executive. Following the guidance is not compulsory and you are free to take other action. But if you do follow the guidance you will normally be doing enough to comply with the law. Health and safety inspectors seek to secure compliance with the law and may refer to this guidance as illustrating good practice.

Contents Introduction 4

Background 5 Duty under law 5 What do we mean by shift work? 6 Shift workers in the UK 6

Assessing and managing the risks associated with shift work 7

Consider the risks of shift work and the benefits of effective management 8 What are the undesirable effects of shift work? 8 Consider the costs and benefits of effective management of shift-working arrangements 12

Establish systems to manage the risks of shift work 13 Seek management commitment to control the risks of shift work 13 Identify individuals responsible for shift-working arrangements 13 Involve safety representatives and workers 13

Assess the risks associated with shift work in your workplace 14 Consider the risks that workers may be exposed to 14 Establish who might be harmed by shift work 14 Consult workers and their safety representatives 15

Take action to reduce the risks 16 Assess how severe the risks are and identify where improvements need to be made 16 Improve the shift-work schedule 16 Improve the workplace environment 23 Apply good practice guidelines 28

Check and review your shift-work arrangements regularly 31 Implement a system for early reporting of problems associated with shift work 31 Monitor alterations to shift-work schedules and/or work conditions 31 Periodically review the effectiveness of your shift-working arrangements 32

Appendix 1 Legal requirements 33

Appendix 2 Strategies and practical advice shift workers can use to improve their health and well-being 35 Appendix 3 Assessment tools and techniques 38

Appendix 4 Further sources of information and help 39

Appendix 5 References and further reading 40

Introduction 1 This guidance aims to improve safety and reduce ill health by:

n making employers aware of their duty under law to assess any risks associated with shift work; n improving understanding of shift work and its impact on health and safety; n providing advice on risk assessment, design of shift-work schedules and the shift-work environment; n suggesting measures employers, safety representatives and employees can use to reduce the negative impact of shift work; n reducing fatigue, poor performance, errors and accidents by enabling employers to control, manage and monitor the risks of shift work.

2 The guidance is aimed at employers, safety representatives, trade union officials, employees, regulators and other stakeholders.

Background Duty under law

3 The Working Time Regulations 1998 (as amended) (WTR) lay down the minimum legal requirements on how to organise working time.1,2 Some workers in certain sectors, such as the aviation industry and mobile workers in road and sea transport are currently exempt from WTR and are subject to specific legislation that relates to working time. The basic rights and protections that WTR provide are outlined in Appendix 1.

4 In addition to WTR, workers doing safety-critical work on the railways are also subject to the Railway and Other Guided Transport Systems (Safety) Regulations 2006. 3,4 These Regulations include a duty to make arrangements to prevent serious consequences arising from tired/fatigued employees and so endanger safety.

5 It is not however sufficient to rely on the above requirements to ensure that you meet your obligations for health and safety in regard to shift-working arrangements (see Appendix 1). When you organise and plan shift work, you must also comply with employers’ general duties under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 (the HSW Act)5 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (MHSWR).6 Under the HSW Act all employers, including the self employed, have a duty, so far as it is reasonably practicable, to protect the health, safety and welfare at work of all their employees. They also have a duty, so far as is reasonably practicable, to ensure that others are not exposed to health and safety risks through their undertaking.

6 Under MHSWR, employers are required to make an assessment of the risks to employees from work activities and make a commitment to introduce measures that are ‘reasonably practicable’ to remove or control these risks. This includes the number of hours worked and how these hours are scheduled.

7 Employees also have a duty to take reasonable care of their own health and safety and that of other people, who may be affected by their activities at work. This duty implies that employees should take positive steps to understand the risk factors in their work, such as the causes of fatigue, comply with safety rules and procedures and make sure that nothing they do or fail to do at work puts anyone at risk.

8 Under the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 19777 and the Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees) Regulations 1996,8,9 employers must consult with employees on health and safety matters. Consultation involves employers not only giving information to employees but also listening to and taking account of what employees say before they make any health and safety decisions. If a decision involving work equipment, processes or organisation could affect the health and safety of employees, such as any proposed changes to shift- working arrangements, the employer must allow time to give the employees (or their representatives) information about the proposals. The employer must also give the employees (or their representatives) the chance to express their views. Then the employer must take account of these views before reaching a decision.

What do we mean by shift work?

9 There is no specific definition of shift work in law, but it usually means:

n a work activity scheduled outside standard daytime hours, where there may be a handover of duty from one individual or work group to another; n a pattern of work where one employee replaces another on the same job within a 24-hour period.10,11

10 Standard daytime hours are considered as:

n a work schedule involving an activity during the day, commonly for a period of eight hours between 7.00 am and 7.00 pm. There are usually two periods of work, one in the morning, the other in the afternoon, separated by a lunch-time break.

11 In this guidance, all systems of work other than standard daytime hours are considered as shift work. Examples of shift work might be:

n work during the afternoon, night or weekend, typically with periods of the work schedule outside standard daytime hours; n extended work periods of 12 hours or more, often associated with compressing the working week; n rotating hours of work; n split shifts, where work periods are divided into two distinct parts with several hours break in between; n overtime; n standby/on-call duties.

Shift workers in the UK

12 The number of shift workers in the UK has gradually increased over the last 25 years reaching a peak in 2000, when around 15% of the working population (approximately 3.8 million people), worked shifts for ‘most of the time’. Since then, numbers have stabilised, with around 14% of the working population (3.6 million people) now doing shift work ‘most of the time’.12

13 In the past, shift work was traditionally associated with industries where 24-hour operation was either necessary (eg essential public services like hospitals, the police, the fire brigade and the utilities) or practical (eg the transportation, chemical, mining and other process and manufacturing industries). The recent upward trend in the percentage of people employed in shift work reflects an adoption of shift work beyond the traditional sectors.11 For example supermarkets, petrol stations and call centres now commonly employ shift workers.

14 This trend has developed because of changes in society, supported by workers who are prepared to do shift work. There may be several reasons for this, such as the recent shift towards a 24-hour society, lack of employment options or a preference for compensatory factors such as flexible working, better pay or time off in lieu.

Assessing and managing the risks associated with shift work 15 The main principle of the HSW Act is that those who create risk from work activity are responsible for the protection of workers and the public from any consequences. As shift work may affect the health and safety of your employees and the public, it is important for you to control risks effectively and prevent harm to people.

16 The HSE publication, Successful health and safety management13 describes a systematic approach to assessing and managing health and safety risks. An approach based on this, that you might wish to use to manage shift-working arrangements, is summarised in Figure 1.

17 This approach will allow you to assess and better organise your shift-work schedules. You may also wish to consult any specific guidance or standards of good practice that have been developed for your particular industry. Under certain circumstances, however, additional external expertise may be required, for example when:

n your organisation has difficulty making decisions; n the planning and organisation of the shift-work schedule is too complex; n there are safety critical issues to consider.

Sources of further information and help can be found in Appendix 4.

n What are the undesirable effects of shift work? Consider the risks of shift work and the benefits n Consider the costs and benefits of effective of effective management. management of shift-working arrangements.

n Seek management commitment to control the risks of shift work. Establish systems to manage the risks of shift work. n Identify individuals responsible for shift-working arrangements. n Involve safety representatives and workers.

n Consider the risks that workers may be exposed to. Assess the risks associated with shift work in n Establish who might be harmed by shift work. your workplace. n Consult workers and their safety representatives.

n Assess how severe the risks are and identify where improvements need to be made. Take action to reduce these risks. n Improve the shift-work schedule. n Improve the workplace environment. n Apply good practice guidelines.

n Implement a system for early reporting of problems associated with shift work. n Monitor alterations to shift-work schedules and/or Check and review your shift-work arrangements work conditions. regularly. n Periodically review the effectiveness of your shift- working arrangements.

Figure 1 A systematic approach to assessing and managing the risks associated with shift work

Consider the risks of shift work and the benefits of effective management What are the undesirable effects of shift work?

18 Research has shown that there can be undesirable consequences for those working shifts outside standard daytime hours, particularly those covering the night or with early morning starts.14,15 For example, shift work may result in:

n disruption of the internal body clock; n fatigue; n sleeping difficulties; n disturbed appetite and digestion; n reliance on sedatives and/or stimulants; n social and domestic problems,

which in turn can affect performance, increase the likelihood of errors and accidents at work and might have a negative effect on health.

Disruption of the internal body clock (circadian rhythms) 19 By nature, humans are active and perform best during the day and need to sleep at night when performance is generally poorer. We follow this innate pattern because of an internal body clock, located in the brain which sets the daily cycle of biological activities, such as chemical and hormone release that influence body activity. For example, heart rate, blood pressure and body temperature are increased during the day. At night they are reduced and we slow down and feel sleepy. This daily cycle is known as the circadian rhythm and explains why we eat and sleep at similar times each day.16 External factors or cues such as daylight, meal times, clocks and working hours help to regulate this internal body clock, and play an important role in keeping our bodies in step with the world around us.

20 Our internal body clock can change gradually, but for most people it is resistant to the abrupt changes in the sleep/wake cycle that are required by shift-work schedules or flying across time zones. This can cause our natural daily rhythms to become out of tune with those of the world around us. This is the reason why we can feel ‘out of sorts’ and less able to function to the best of our ability when we do not get enough sleep.

21 The adjustment of our internal body clock to an abrupt change in the sleep/ wake cycle may take days or weeks. It will start to adjust body functions after a few days of shift work, but at different rates, so behaviours that rely on a regular cycle such as digestion, alertness and sleep are disturbed. The adjustment may be more successful in specialised work environments, such as submarines and oil rigs, where the effects of external cues are minimised. However, our internal body clock will never fully adjust, even for workers on permanent night shifts. Those regular night workers who change back to daytime routines during rest days will continue to suffer the consequences of a disrupted internal clock, as it attempts to reset to daylight rhythms during days off.

Sleep disturbance/loss 22 A consensus view by scientists who study human performance and safety is that sleep is a powerful and vital biological need. Insufficient and disturbed sleep, chronic sleep loss and being awake for prolonged periods, increases the risk of errors and accidents.17,18

23 Day sleep is usually lighter and shorter in duration and therefore less restorative than night sleep.14 It is more often disturbed because of warmer temperatures and daytime activity such as the phone ringing, noisy children or domestic responsibilities. While we can rearrange some external cues, for example meal times, it is difficult to control all influential sleep/wake cues, particularly daylight. For example exposure to bright light at dawn after a night shift may make you less inclined to sleep.

24 People’s adaptability means that we can, if we need to, resist our internal body clock and function for periods with either reduced sleep or even no sleep at all. The cost of resisting this need to sleep is known as a ‘sleep debt’. The desire to recover this debt can be very hard to resist, particularly when external cues or our body’s internal body clock are driving us to sleep.

25 Research reveals that when we are sleep deprived and/or fatigued, performance is affected and errors are more likely.19,20 This particularly applies to tasks that require:

n vigilance and monitoring; n decision making; n awareness; n fast reaction time; n tracking ability; n memory.

Fatigue 26 Fatigue is the decline in mental and/or physical performance that results from prolonged exertion, lack of quality sleep or disruption of the internal body clock.21 The degree to which a worker is prone to fatigue is also related to workload. For example, work that requires constant attention, is machine paced, complex or monotonous will increase the risk of fatigue.19

27 A poor balance between the demands of work and the time provided for rest and recovery, resulting for example, from poorly designed shift-work schedules and long working hours is likely to result in chronic fatigue.

28 Levels of fatigue are also affected by personal factors such as home life or individual characteristics. You will need to be aware of these factors when you carry out your risk assessment, but you are not expected to control them.

29 The consequences of fatigue include reduced alertness, poor and slow perception and sleepiness.19 Chronic fatigue has also been associated with a number of long-term health problems.21

Errors, productivity and accidents 30 For shift working to be financially viable, you need to maintain a satisfactory level of productivity and safety. Fatigued shift workers may perform less well than those working standard daytime hours, especially during periods of low alertness. The consequences of this could range from relatively minor events to serious accidents. Take both ends of this spectrum into account when you are assessing the cost- effectiveness of shift working as the social and financial costs of frequent minor events may equate over time to those associated with a rarely occurring serious accident.

31 The risk of errors, accidents and injuries has been found:

n to be higher on the night shift; n to rise with increasing shift length over eight hours; n to increase over successive shifts, especially if they are night shifts; n to increase when there are not enough breaks.18,22

32 Poorly designed work schedules causing fatigue-induced impairment of performance will increase the risks. For example, a long night shift without