Health and safety: fright night special!

This Halloween, you might be watching a few scary movies to get into the spooky spirit. We've been revisiting some new and classic horror films with our health and safety hats on and couldn't help but wonder how some of the scares might have been avoided.

Send Help (2026) 

The most recent of our horror watches, was this year’s dark comedy survival horror thriller from Sam Raimi. 

Linda from strategy and planning, finds herself on a business trip when disaster strikes. Linda Liddle and her new boss Bradley Preston find themselves the only survivors when their plane crashes. They have to survive on a remote Thai island, until help can arrive (or maybe not!).

While the film is packed with darkly funny moments, it got us thinking about the importance of planning for overseas business travel. 

As an employer you have a legal duty to take all reasonable steps to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of employees, including when they are travelling for work purposes.

When employees are travelling travel abroad for business, you will need to carry out a travel risk assessment. Doing so helps identify potential hazards and determine suitable measures to eliminate or reduce the risks, ensuring employees can travel as safely as possible. Travel risk assessments should be reviewed annually and whenever a significant incident occurs.

Now, we recognise that Linda and Bradley faced a rather unusual series of hazards on their ensuing survival experience, but we’re sure any future business trips for the company would have considered a few more risks than before…

The Woman in Black (2012) 

This gothic horror featured Daniel Radcliffe as a recently widowed lawyer Arthur Kipps. Kipps has to visit a remote English village in order to settle the estate of a deceased client. 

Whilst there, Kipps experiences a series of spooky and unsettling happenings. Think odd noises, (far too many) creepy Victorian dolls, spectral entities with full black funeral wear, bolted rooms and bodiless screams. 

Now, this is a Halloween special of our health and safety blog, so cue our thoughts on lone working and what your responsibilities are.

As an employer, protecting lone workers also extends to anyone who works for you as a contractor, freelance or self-employed individual.

As an employer the first step would be to complete a risk assessments for lone working. Here you should consider the hazards they may face in their work or the environment they are working in. It should also identify how to eliminate or mitigate these hazards in order to reduce the risk to your workers. 

There are particular risks which may be more prevalent for lone workers, such as:

• Location of the workplace (if it’s isolated or remote, help will take longer to access).
• Mental well-being of workers (no colleagues to share stresses or concerns with).
• Violence (whilst not necessarily more prevalent in lone working situations they are more vulnerable in being alone).

Training is essential for lone workers. Remember that supervision and monitoring of lone workers is necessary, even if remotely. 

Carrie (1976) 

The oldest of our watches this Halloween, this 1970s classic has had remakes in the last few years but we love the original version of Stephen King’s horror.

Carrie, sees our titular character relentlessly bullied by her peers. The school bullies are banned from the prom and plan their revenge on Carrie. The biggest night of the year is the location of the planned revenge. Think buckets of pigs blood and humiliation.

Little do they know that Carrie has learnt telekinesis, and so things don’t entirely go to plan. The tables are turned, and some!

Now, where are we going with this? The health and safety of event planning of course! 

Risk assessments are a necessary requirement to keep your staff safe. Making sure that you have identified potential hazards and associated risks (and how to eliminate or mitigate them!) means that you can enjoy your event knowing that you have done everything needed to have a safe celebration.

Avoiding health and safety horrors in your business 

Whatever horrors you’re watching this Halloween, make sure your business isn’t one of them.

Here at The H&S Dept we are here to help with any aspect of keeping your business safe. 

If you need to discuss risk assessments for business travel, lone working or event planning then reach out to us today. 

We also provide training and can write policies and procedures to ensure a safe working environment. From the basics through to comprehensive health and safety management support, we're here to help create a safer working environment for everyone, contact us to find out more.