October 2026 health and safety update: law changes, HSE focus and recent prosecutions

October 2026 · Written by Chris Clark, chartered health and safety professional, 3Sixty Health & Safety

Here’s our round-up of what’s changing for employers this autumn, with free templates for the new harassment duty, where HSE is focusing its inspections, and what last month’s prosecutions tell us. At the end there’s a short checklist of things worth doing this month.

What’s changing

Sexual harassment: a tougher duty from 30 October

From 30 October 2026, the Employment Rights Act 2025 strengthens the duty on employers. You must take “all reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment of your workers, not just “reasonable steps”. You also become liable for harassment of your workers by third parties, such as customers, clients, visitors or members of the public, unless you have taken all reasonable steps to prevent it. This covers harassment related to any protected characteristic, such as race, disability or sex, not just sexual harassment.

This is a workplace risk like any other. In practice, that means:

  • a clear, up-to-date policy that covers third parties as well as colleagues
  • thinking through where harassment could happen (lone working, customer-facing roles, site visits, events and travel) and what would reduce the risk
  • training for managers and staff, and an easy way to report concerns
  • acting on reports quickly and recording what you did

Free templates: anti-harassment policy and harassment risk assessment

We’ve written two free templates to help you meet the new duty: a policy covering sexual harassment and third parties, and a risk assessment with common situations and example controls. Read them free online and download the editable Word versions.

See the harassment templates

Other Employment Rights Act changes also start on 30 October, including new rights for trade unions to access workplaces. Unfair dismissal protection after six months’ service follows in 2027.

Building Safety Levy: in force from 1 October

Developers of new residential buildings in England now pay the Building Safety Levy, collected through building control. It’s charged per square metre of residential floorspace and helps pay to fix building safety defects, such as unsafe cladding, in existing buildings. Developments of fewer than 10 homes, social housing, and buildings such as hospitals, care homes and schools are exempt. If you build homes, check whether the levy applies to your projects. Building control can hold back completion certificates until it’s paid.

Fairer compensation for families of asbestos and dust disease victims

New legislation, expected to take effect on 31 October 2026, will give dependants the same lump-sum compensation as people living with diseases such as mesothelioma and pneumoconiosis. At the moment, dependants receive about £10,700 on average, against £17,700 for sufferers. This doesn’t change what employers must do, but it’s a reminder of what’s at stake when asbestos and dust aren’t controlled.

Coming next: Martyn’s Law and RIDDOR

  • Martyn’s Law (the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025). In September, the government set out how to decide who is responsible for premises that have more than one use. The main duties are expected from spring 2027. If you run or control a venue or premises where 200 or more people may be present, now is a good time to start preparing.
  • RIDDOR. HSE’s consultation on changes to accident reporting closed on 30 June 2026. The proposals include clearer definitions, an updated list of dangerous occurrences, letting more health professionals diagnose reportable diseases, and a simpler online form. Nothing has changed yet. Keep reporting under the current rules, and we’ll let you know when the changes are confirmed.
  • Menopause. A new international standard, BS ISO 45010, published in September, gives employers guidance on supporting staff through menstruation and menopause. Menopause action plans become mandatory for large employers from 2027.

Don’t forget: DSE assessments for home and hybrid workers

As the nights draw in, more people work from home at least some of the time. The Display Screen Equipment Regulations apply wherever someone works, and in March HSE reminded employers that home workers must be protected like any other employee. Everyone who uses a screen daily for an hour or more at a time needs a workstation assessment, covering home as well as the office if they work in both places. You don’t usually need to visit: trained workers can assess their own home set-up using a proper checklist.

Free DSE workstation self-assessment

A step-by-step visual guide for your staff to set up their chair, screen, keyboard and mouse, with a quick check at each step. They can download the completed assessment and any actions to share with their manager. Read more in our guide to DSE and home working.

Start the DSE self-assessment

Where HSE is focusing

Silica dust and engineered stone. HSE is carrying out more than 1,000 inspections of businesses that work with engineered stone (for example kitchen worktops) during 2026/27. Its updated guidance effectively rules out dry cutting, grinding and polishing unless you can show that another control is equally effective or better. Inspectors have already stopped work at businesses without proper extraction, suitable RPE or health surveillance. The same principles apply to cutting concrete, brick and block on any site. Our free respirable crystalline silica COSHH assessment is a good starting point.

Illegal gas work. HSE has secured 17 convictions in the last 18 months against people working on gas without being on the Gas Safe Register, including one faking the Gas Safe logo. If you hire contractors for gas work, check their registration and the categories of work they’re qualified for.

Recent prosecutions and what they teach us

Last month’s court cases show the same failings again and again. These are the ones most relevant to the businesses we work with.

  • Unprotected stairwell opening: £300,000. A 24-year-old father fell one storey onto concrete through an unprotected stairwell opening on a housing site in Sowerby Bridge. He suffered spinal injuries and can’t return to physical work. Hillbeck Homes (Sowerby Bridge) Ltd was fined £300,000 for failing to plan and supervise the work at height. Edge protection or secured covers would have prevented it.
  • Trench collapse: £1.15 million in fines and a suspended prison sentence. A 33-year-old worker was killed when an unsupported trench in Surrey collapsed, burying him under around two tonnes of soil. The subcontractor was fined £650,000 and the principal contractor £500,000. The self-employed contracts manager, who had seen another worker in the same unsupported trench, received a 10-month suspended prison sentence. Individuals can be, and are, prosecuted.
  • Warning signs ignored: £2 million. Transport for London was fined £2 million after a 74-year-old woman was killed by a bus at Walthamstow bus station. A similar collision had happened in 2022, and five near misses were recorded in the days before. The crossing was on a bend where drivers couldn’t see its full length.
  • A near miss not followed up: £1.3 million. St James Ltd (part of the Berkeley Group) was fined £1 million and window contractor Lindner Prater Ltd £300,000 after a window fell from a 26th-floor penthouse and killed a man below. A window had already fallen from the same building during construction. The windows relied on a single restrictor held by one screw.
  • Maintenance without safe isolation: £594,000. Samworth Brothers Ltd was fined after an employee and a contractor were scalded while working on steam pipework at a food factory in Melton Mowbray.
  • An unplanned lift: £230,000 plus £111,000 costs. A worker suffered life-changing injuries when a 1.2-tonne crate fell from a forklift during a delivery that hadn’t been planned or supervised. Smith & Nephew Medical Ltd was fined. One-off and unusual lifts need their own plan.
  • Unguarded conveyors. Three separate cases, with fines of £160,000 and £333,333 for life-changing arm injuries, and a fatal crush through a gap in fixed guarding at an aggregates yard. Check guards are in place, complete and can’t be bypassed, and isolate machines before maintenance.

Three of these cases involved an earlier incident or near miss that wasn’t properly acted on. If something nearly goes wrong on your site, treat it as a free warning: investigate, fix it and record what you did.

Your October checklist

  1. Update your harassment policy and risk assessment before 30 October, including harassment by customers, clients and the public. Our free templates will get you started.
  2. Check edge protection and openings on every site: stairwells, risers, roof edges and floor openings.
  3. Review excavation controls. No one enters an unsupported trench, and spoil is kept back from the edge.
  4. Look at your near-miss records. Has every one been followed up?
  5. Check dust controls. Make sure cutting tools have water suppression or extraction, RPE has been face-fit tested, and health surveillance is in place where needed.
  6. Prepare for the clocks going back on Sunday 25 October. Check lighting in yards, car parks, walkways and site access routes, and plan for darker mornings and evenings on the roads.
  7. Check your DSE assessments are up to date, especially for anyone now working from home. Ask them to complete our free DSE self-assessment.

Free COSHH assessments

25 ready-made COSHH assessments for the substances that come up most on site and in workshops, including silica, wood dust, solvents and fuels. View them free and download the editable Word versions.

See the COSHH assessments

Need help with any of this?

If you’d like help updating your policies, checking your sites or getting ready for the changes ahead, our chartered consultants can help. Book a free review, or find out about our retained support.

Sources

Case Studies

Useful Tools

3 Sixty Health and Safety
© 2026 3Sixty Health & Safety