College pays for stress

A further education lecturer has been awarded £80,000 by her employer after receiving stress-related injuries at work. The lecturer, supported by the NATFHE education union, received the out-of-court settlement after suffering a nervous breakdown while working at Henley College in Coventry.

The union claimed that the college endangered her health through overwork and breached its duty of care. The college did not carry out a risk assessment to assess the risk of damage to the lecturer's mental health.