Safe and healthy work the foundation for growth in Scotland

Key statistics

In 2024-25, 26 people in Scotland suffered fatal injuries at work. Over the past five years, the annual average has been 20 fatalities, though numbers have fluctuated considerably year to year. This equates to 0.73 fatalities per 100,000 workers – significantly higher than the Great Britain rate of 0.4 per 100,000. [1]

Time for action

We urge the incoming Scottish Government to prioritise preventing workplace harm by:

• Embedding lifelong OSH education, skills and competence across Scotland’s education system.
• Implementing a systems-based and holistic approach to workplace wellbeing.
• Improving health and safety in Scotland’s construction industry. 
• Developing a prevention-focused national Scottish workplace mental health strategy.
• Strengthening overall OSH management systems.

Embedding lifelong OSH education, skills and competence across Scotland’s education system

Integrating OSH into education systems and lifelong learning builds safer work, working environments, and stronger communities. Awareness and early learning reduce preventable harm, whether from injuries or long‑term ill health, and delivers lasting benefits to the economy, businesses and workers. Embedding safety and health skills now ensures today's and tomorrow’s workforce is equipped to work safely, healthily, sustainably and productively.

Ensuring health and safety principles and practice are included within the school curricula, within apprenticeships and workforce development helps young people identify what can cause harm and understand what controls can manage risks proactively throughout their careers. It creates a generation of workers and future leaders who see safety, health and wellbeing as core to delivering sustainable and decent work and to effective leadership rather than optional. This in turn leads to strengthening workplace culture and long-term productivity and performance.

Calls to action

• Introduce OSH skills into the Curriculum for Excellence as part of the health and wellbeing modules or any future national curriculum.
• Provide funding for smaller businesses in high-risk industries, including rural and construction, to access OSH training at all levels of the workforce.

Implementing a systems-based and holistic approach to workplace wellbeing

Workplace wellbeing is a broad, holistic concept encompassing physical, mental, emotional and social health. Creating cultures of positive wellbeing means fostering good working environments that prevent harm and support sustainable work and performance.

This requires a proactive, preventative approach to reducing harm to both physical and mental health, which includes robust risk management of psychosocial hazards, alongside supporting work-life balance. While there are a range of workplace wellbeing models, the core aim is consistent: workers should be safe, healthy, well and able to perform. The system should ensure visible commitment from leadership, worker participation and other core management elements. IOSH recommends embedding health and wellbeing within robust OSH management systems at an organisational level.

Achieving this depends on three key foundations: a safe and healthy physical environment, a positive and safe psychosocial environment, and good quality and fair work.

Calls to action

• Expand upon existing support for Healthy Working Lives with tailored accessible and practical tools to support small and medium sized employers.  
• Improve data and measurement on workplace wellbeing, including mental health and psychosocial risks by recording data via NHS Scotland and engagement with Healthy Working Lives run by Public Health Scotland.
• Actively promote prevention-first and system-based strategies.

Improving health and safety in Scotland’s construction industry

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) data for 2024/25 reported that 26 people died in Scotland due to workplace accidents, which is an increase on the 18 deaths in the previous year. [2] There has been on average 20 fatal injuries to workers annually over the last five years. [3]

Regional data for Scotland has been consistently higher than the rest of the UK. HSE has argued that this may be due to more people in Scotland being employed in higher risk industry sectors or higher risk occupations, compared with Great Britain as a whole. One such high risk industry is construction. Specific regional data per sector is currently not provided by HSE, but 35 deaths were attributed to construction last year in Great Britain as a whole last year. [4]

However, the construction industry is a key driver of economic growth and central to delivering national infrastructure and housing ambitions. Improving health and safety in construction is both a moral and economic imperative, as well as a legal one.

Developing a prevention-focused national Scottish workplace mental health strategy

Workplace mental health in Scotland is no longer a hidden issue; it is a public health and economic priority. With rising pressures from changing work patterns, economic uncertainty, and the lasting impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, employees are facing unprecedented stress, anxiety, and depression. Poor mental health not only affects individual wellbeing but also business performance, through productivity, staff retention, and organisational resilience.

Despite increased awareness, too many workplaces still lack preventative and proactive strategies and action, meaning root causes and hazards and risks are not addressed. For Scotland to thrive, employers, policymakers, and public health bodies must act now to embed mental health into the core of workplace culture.

Evidence shows that early support, mental health training, and inclusive workplace policies reduce absenteeism, improve engagement, and lower long-term costs. Scotland has an opportunity to lead the UK in creating workplaces where mental wellbeing is prioritised alongside physical safety. IOSH recommends embedding mental health as part of robust OSH management systems.

But delays carry consequences. Every day employers fail to act, while workers struggle in silence, the human and economic cost continue to rise. Bold, coordinated action is needed to make Scottish workplaces healthier, fairer, and more sustainable for the future.

Calls to action

• Develop a prevention-first national Scottish workplace mental health strategy which recognises the role of the workplace, invests in cross-government department working, pursues evidence-based policies and practices, and establishes reporting and monitoring systems.

Strengthening overall OSH management systems

The world of work is transforming at an unprecedented pace, and the OSH profession must evolve to meet these challenges and continue to assist employers with preventing harm and protecting workers.

Fundamental shifts in technology, work practices, and workforce demographics and expectations are redefining how, when and where work happens and in turn impacting the health and safety of workers. To ensure that all businesses can prevent work-related fatalities, injuries, ill health, and occupational diseases, the Scottish Government must make sustained investments in national occupational safety and health capacity.

At the same time, it must strengthen support for mental health and the management of psychosocial risks within businesses, the implementation and maintenance of OSH systems, and provision of occupational health services. By acting decisively, the Scottish Government can secure safer workplaces and healthier lives for workers across the country.

Calls to action

• Back the Health and Safety Executive to do its role and help businesses prevent harm through increased staffing and funding that enables better guidance, more inspections and effective enforcement across its wider regulatory remit.
• Invest in strong occupational health systems. Equip small and medium-sized enterprises with the resources they need to invest in prevention and early intervention around occupational health, including mental health.