Employers have a legal duty to address foreseeable workplace health-and-safety risks wherever a feasible control exists. Three gaps in immediate mental-health support have, until now, been difficult to control. With a feasible control now available, employers are obliged to address them.
Mental Health Within Health & Safety
Workplace health-and-safety responsibilities are not limited to visible physical injuries. Work-related psychological risks can also affect workers' health and safety. Examples include:
- Excessive workplace stress.
- Harassment or bullying.
- Exposure to traumatic incidents.
- Threats or violence.
- Serious psychological distress arising from working conditions.
- Inadequate arrangements for responding to foreseeable emergencies.
Appropriate organisational controls may include prevention, risk reduction, training, occupational-health services, employee support arrangements and emergency-response procedures.
Equivalent to the role of First Aid in physical health & safety, Second Aid addresses a narrower part of this wider framework in mental health & safety: immediate access to self-use stabilisation support when somebody experiences emotional distress. It is not a substitute for preventing harmful working conditions or for providing professional assistance where required.
The Existing Support Gaps
Organisations may already provide mental-health information, counselling, Employee Assistance Programmes, Mental Health First Aiders or other support services. These arrangements can be valuable but may not cover every foreseeable situation.
The Workplace Mental Health & Safety Assessment: Support & Response, published by WMHSA, identifies several distinct support and response requirements. Three are particularly relevant to Second Aid.
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1Unwilling or Unable to Ask for Help
A worker may need support but be unwilling or unable to disclose distress or ask another person for help. Support that depends on disclosure or help-seeking may then never be accessed, and distress may continue or escalate.
41% of US adults are not comfortable asking for help1Second Aid provides meaningful support privately, without requiring disclosure or asking another person for help.
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2Immediate Distress Where It Occurs
A worker may experience acute distress or a panic attack requiring immediate stabilisation where it occurs. Scheduled or person-dependent support may not be available at that moment, and acute distress may escalate.
11.2% of US adults experience panic attacks2Second Aid provides an always-visible self-stabilisation tool at the point of need, with no registration, disclosure or personal information required.
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3Waiting for Professional Assistance
A worker may need professional assistance but face a delay before it becomes available, during which distress may continue or escalate.
Second Aid provides immediately accessible stabilisation support in the period before professional assistance is available. Like First Aid, Second Aid does not replace professional assessment or treatment.
These situations correspond to references 4, 5 and 8 of the WMHSA Support & Response assessment. The assessment also addresses access to professional care, trained responders, remote support, crisis procedures, post-incident arrangements and ongoing support.
Feasible Controls
Health-and-safety risk management generally involves identifying foreseeable hazards, assessing risks and selecting suitable measures to control them. The availability and practicality of a control are relevant to that process. A control that was previously unavailable, prohibitively expensive or impractical may become a realistic option as technology and infrastructure develop.
Second Aid provides such a control for the three immediate-support gaps. Because it is deployed as a printed QR code, it can be implemented immediately and at minimal cost, with no hardware, software or staff training, and does not require a trained person to administer it. Organisations must therefore ensure that an immediate, private self-stabilisation option is in place within their support and response arrangements.
The introduction of Second Aid in April 2026 establishes a feasible means of addressing three previously difficult-to-control workplace mental-health support gaps. Where these gaps present foreseeable risks and existing controls are inadequate, employers are legally obliged to implement an effective solution under applicable health-and-safety law.
The Written Law
In both the United Kingdom and the United States, the core employer duty is written in general terms and qualified by what can feasibly be done: where a feasible control exists, employers are expected to use it.
United Kingdom
"It shall be the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all his employees."
In plain English, "reasonably practicable" means that where a health-and-safety risk can be addressed with a feasible control, employers have a legal obligation to do so. Section 3 of the Act extends a similar duty to other people affected by an organisation's activities, such as students, patients, clients and visitors.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) confirms that this duty covers work-related stress, which employers must assess and act on (HSE guidance). With a feasible control now available for the three immediate-support gaps, addressing them is reasonably practicable.
United States
"The Congress declares it to be its purpose and policy [...] to assure so far as possible every working man and woman in the Nation safe and healthful working conditions [...]"
"Each employer [...] shall furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards [...]"
In plain English, "so far as possible" means that where a recognised hazard can be addressed with a feasible control, employers are expected to address it.
Section 5(a)(1), known as the General Duty Clause, applies to recognised hazards causing or likely to cause death or serious harm. In applying it, OSHA considers whether feasible and effective controls are available, and it publishes separate guidance on workplace stress (OSHA guidance).
Other Jurisdictions
The same principle runs through most occupational health-and-safety laws worldwide: when a health-and-safety gap can be addressed with a feasible solution, employers have a legal obligation to do so.
The International Labour Organization's Occupational Safety and Health Convention, 1981 (No. 155) requires employers to ensure, "so far as is reasonably practicable", that workplaces are safe and without risk to health. The same standard appears in national legislation including Australia's Work Health and Safety Act 2011, New Zealand's Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, Ireland's Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 and Singapore's Workplace Safety and Health Act 2006. Across the European Union, the Framework Directive (89/391/EEC) requires employers to adapt their protective measures to technical progress.
The exact wording and scope differ between jurisdictions, and organisations should confirm the requirements that apply in each location where Second Aid is deployed.
Employer Liability
Before April 2026, the three existing support gaps had no feasible control. With the introduction of Second Aid, they now do. Under the principle set out in the written law, employers therefore have a legal obligation to address them.
An employer that leaves these gaps unaddressed is exposed to liability. Where an employee experiences one of the three situations and receives no support, despite that support being feasible to provide through Second Aid, the employer may face a legal claim for the harm that results.
Organisations that fail to address health-and-safety gaps when feasible to do so, as required by law, can be sued by employees harmed as a result.
Risk Assessments
The central question for an organisation is not simply whether mental-health support services exist. It is whether the arrangements adequately address the foreseeable situations in which support may be needed.
For example, an Employee Assistance Programme may provide confidential professional counselling. That does not necessarily establish that workers can obtain immediate, private support during an acute episode of distress. Similarly, trained Mental Health First Aiders may be available during some periods but not at every location or at all times.
A risk assessment should examine the actual accessibility and effectiveness of controls. Where immediate, private self-stabilisation is not available, the three gaps remain uncontrolled and must be addressed.
A complete workplace assessment must also address underlying psychosocial hazards, prevention, emergency arrangements and ongoing support.
WMHSA
Workplace Mental Health & Safety Assessments (WMHSA) provides a dedicated support and response assessment framework. Its Support & Response assessment covers ten foreseeable situations, including:
- Identifying available mental-health support.
- Accessing professional assistance.
- Accessing an available human responder.
- Obtaining support without disclosure.
- Accessing immediate stabilisation during acute distress.
- Contacting remote human support.
- Accessing urgent professional crisis intervention.
- Receiving support while waiting for professional assistance.
- Receiving support after a traumatic workplace incident.
- Receiving continuing support following mental-health-related absence or impairment.
Each situation is evaluated according to whether the relevant risk is adequately controlled, partially controlled or uncontrolled. Second Aid is identified as a possible control for the private self-use and immediate-stabilisation situations.
The assessment is intended to complement broader occupational-health and psychosocial risk assessments, not replace them.
Further information: https://wmhsa.org