LRD guides and handbook October 2024

Health and Safety Law 2024

Following a challenge by the public services union UNISON and the Maternity Action charity, the HSE revised its guidance on protecting pregnant workers and new mothers. The two organisations pointed to a 2017 European Court of Justice (CJEU) decision, in Otero Ramos v Servicio Galego de Saúde, Instituto Nacional de la Seguridad Social (2017) C-531/15, ECLI:EU:C:2017:789, [2018] IRLR 159 (see pages 33-34), which states that “employers must undertake an individual risk assessment where a woman has notified her employer that she is pregnant, has given birth or is breastfeeding”.