Most employers think about the risk assessment the day someone walks into the office and announces they're pregnant. The law requires you to have thought about it before that conversation happens.
Under the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 (MHSWR) and the earlier Management of Health and Safety at Work (Amendment) Regulations 1994, employers have a specific, non-negotiable duty to assess and manage risks to new and expectant mothers in the workplace. This is not an HR matter. It sits squarely in health and safety law.
Here is what the law requires, when the duty starts, and what you need to do if the risk cannot be removed.
The Two-Stage Legal Duty
The MHSWR creates two separate obligations, and both matter.
Stage 1: General assessment for women of childbearing age. Your existing workplace risk assessment must already be identifying hazards that are relevant to workers who are, or could become, pregnant or breastfeeding. This applies continuously, regardless of whether any employee is currently pregnant. If your general risk assessment has never considered this, it is not suitable and sufficient.
Stage 2: Individual assessment triggered by written notification. Once an employee notifies you in writing that they are pregnant, have given birth in the last six months, or are currently breastfeeding, the individual duty is triggered. At that point, you must carry out a specific risk assessment tailored to that employee's role, conditions, and stage of pregnancy.
The written notification is the trigger for Stage 2. Until you receive it, there is no obligation to act at the individual level, but Stage 1 must already be in place.
What the Individual Assessment Must Cover
A generic form is not enough. The individual assessment needs to look at the specific hazards this person faces doing this role, at this stage of their pregnancy. The main categories are:
Physical Hazards
Manual handling is the most obvious. Lifting, carrying, pushing, and pulling all carry elevated risk during pregnancy, and that risk increases as pregnancy progresses. Prolonged standing or sitting, cramped work environments, working at height, and whole-body vibration — common in construction, transport, and plant operations — also require assessment.
Biological Hazards
Workers in healthcare, early years settings, waste management, animal handling, and some food environments may be exposed to infectious agents including hepatitis B, rubella, toxoplasmosis, listeria, and salmonella. These are of particular concern during pregnancy and must be considered where relevant.
Chemical Hazards
Certain substances carry specific risks for pregnant and breastfeeding workers: lead compounds, mercury and its derivatives, cytotoxic drugs, carbon monoxide, organic solvents, and some pesticides. If your workplace involves hazardous substances — and this includes paints, adhesives, cleaning chemicals, and gas work — your COSHH assessment directly informs this part of the individual risk assessment.
Psychological Hazards and Working Conditions
Work-related stress, night work, and irregular shift patterns all need consideration. The Working Time Regulations include specific provisions that allow a pregnant worker to be moved away from night work where a GP or midwife confirms it is necessary. This is a right, not a management discretion.
Common Hazards in Typical UK Workplaces
Not every workplace is a construction site, but every workplace presents some risk to a pregnant worker. Here are some of the most common:
- Office environments: DSE workstations, prolonged sitting, stairs, and stress from workload or deadlines
- Retail and hospitality: Prolonged standing, manual handling of stock, late-night or early-morning shift patterns
- Healthcare and care settings: Infection risk, patient or resident handling, shift patterns
- Construction and trades: Physical work, vibration, chemicals (paints, adhesives, solvents, gas work), working at height
- Waste and utilities: Biological and chemical exposure, physical demands, vehicle vibration
For businesses in gas engineering, electrical contracting, painting and decorating, or waste management, these hazards are part of daily operations. The assessment must reflect what the employee actually does in your business, not a generic list.
When the Risk Cannot Be Removed
If the risk assessment identifies a significant risk that cannot be controlled through normal measures, the law sets out a clear three-step process:
Step 1: Adjust working conditions or hours. Change the way the work is done, remove the hazardous task, reduce hours, change shift patterns, while keeping the employee in their existing role. This is the first and preferred option.
Step 2: Offer suitable alternative work. If adjustment does not adequately remove the risk, you must offer the employee suitable alternative work at the same rate of pay, if any such work exists within your business.
Step 3: Suspend on full pay. If neither of the above is possible and the risk cannot be adequately controlled, the employee must be suspended on full pay. This is a statutory right. It is not a dismissal. Treating a pregnancy as a reason to end employment is automatic unfair dismissal and direct sex discrimination under the Equality Act 2010.
Employers who skip Step 1 and Step 2 and move straight to "we have nothing else for you" are exposed both under health and safety law and employment law.
What the Assessment Document Should Include
There is no mandatory template, but a properly structured document will typically cover:
- Employee name, job title, and date of written notification
- Estimated due date, or date of birth if the assessment covers the postnatal period
- Review of the general workplace risk assessment as it applies to her role
- Specific hazards identified in each category: physical, biological, chemical, psychological
- Current controls in place
- Whether those controls remain sufficient given her condition
- Agreed adjustments or actions, with timescales
- Signatures from both the employer and the employee
- Scheduled review dates
Review dates are important and often missed. The risks facing a worker at 10 weeks are different from those at 30 weeks. Monthly review is a reasonable baseline; move to fortnightly in the third trimester or sooner if conditions change.
Breastfeeding: The Duty Does Not End at Birth
The assessment obligation extends to the postnatal period. If an employee returns from maternity leave and is breastfeeding, the same duties apply. You may also need to provide a private, comfortable space for expressing milk. A toilet does not meet that standard.
Practical Guidance for Smaller Businesses
If you are running a business without a dedicated safety or HR function, here are the practical steps:
- Have a template ready before anyone announces a pregnancy. Starting from scratch when the news arrives creates delays and stress.
- Brief any line managers. They are often the first to hear about a pregnancy, and they need to understand the immediate steps: get it in writing, inform the person responsible for the assessment, do not make any adjustments before the assessment is complete.
- Carry out the assessment with the employee, not to them. Talk to her about how she is feeling, what aspects of the role concern her, and whether she has any medical advice already in place from her GP or midwife.
- Document everything. Written notification, assessment, agreed actions, reviews.
- Review regularly. A single assessment completed at the beginning of pregnancy is not enough.
Need Support?
If you need a practical template, a review of your existing process, or support carrying out an assessment, SafeCompli works with businesses across the UK to make sure this is done properly, not just ticked off.
Visit www.safecompli.co.uk to find out more.