To what extent did the existing health and safety legislation protect the health and safety of healthcare workers in the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic?

Wickramasekera, Natasha (2025) To what extent did the existing health and safety legislation protect the health and safety of healthcare workers in the UK during the Covid-19 pandemic? PhD thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This thesis aims to examine whether existing health and safety laws were sufficient to protect the health and safety of healthcare workers in the United Kingdom during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Covid-19 pandemic was incredibly challenging to National Health Service (NHS) healthcare workers due to a multitude of reasons. Healthcare workers were required to provide care to patients that contracted the novel virus without knowing its severity. The highly transmissible nature of the virus overwhelmed hospitals with a surge of critically ill patients. This ultimately led towards overworking workers, causing immense physical and mental distress. Having learned the highly infectious nature of the virus, NHS healthcare workers were required to wear personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect themselves and reduce the transmission of infection. However, due to the widespread transmission of the virus, there was a shortage of PPE, significantly increasing the risk to workers’ health and safety. Despite these impacts, workers were hopeful that their employers would protect them from the occupational health and safety hazards. Employers are under a legal duty to ensure that the health and safety of their employees are protected as far as it is reasonably practicable. This is highlighted under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. In line with the above, the research aims to explore if the health and safety of healthcare workers was adequately protected during the Covid-19 pandemic.

This study adopted a socio-legal methodology and thematic qualitative analysis to answer the research question. Socio-legal method examines the relationship between law and society. In the context of health and safety, while the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 was enacted with the intention of protecting workers, the legal rules are interpreted and applied differently in practice within the NHS. In order to understand this further, data was collected through reviewing testimonies published by healthcare workers online. Collecting secondary data was straightforward due to the vast number of testimonies available online. The testimonies were naturally categorised into themes which assisted the data analysis. Five key themes emerged from the data analysis; prejudicial treatment of black minority ethnic workers, the lack of support for migrant workers, supply of PPE, inconsistent advice across the NHS workforce and the intention to leave the healthcare profession.

Having established the methodology and theoretical framework, the analysis explored the effectiveness of the health and safety laws and how it was practised by employers within the workplace. The mental and physical health impact on healthcare workers were significant. The unfair treatment that minority groups faced during the pandemic exposed them to higher risks of infection. The shortage of PPE resulted in a series of unfortunate incidents, it increased the risk of workers contracting the virus and elevated their anxiety when providing care to patients. When PPE was available, workers were subjected to wearing it for prolonged periods of time which caused physical discomfort. Workers also had to provide care whilst navigating the constantly changing government guidelines, which were often more of an encumbrance than a support.

The research concludes that in instances where legislation fails to offer adequate protection for the health and safety of workers, the trade unions are able to play a vital role in advocating for health and safety policies to be implemented and protective equipment to be stipulated. The analysis also highlights that while the health and safety legislation enables employers to implement health and safety policies for the specific needs of their workplace through the self-regulating system, the lack of consistency in implementation across different NHS trusts caused confusion amongst workers. Overall, although legislation exists to protect workers, many health and safety safeguards were not effectively implemented to adequately protect the health and safety of healthcare workers during the Covid-19 pandemic.

• Item Type: Thesis (PhD)
• Qualification Level: Doctoral
• Subjects: K Law > K Law (General); R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine > RA0421 Public health. Hygiene. Preventive Medicine
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Law
• Supervisor's Name: Dukes, Professor Ruth and Busby, Professor Nicole
• Date of Award: 2025
• Depositing User: Theses Team
• Unique ID: glathesis:2025-85479
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 26 Sep 2025 09:08
• Last Modified: 26 Sep 2025 09:11
• Thesis DOI: 10.5525/gla.thesis.85479
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/85479