Under Health and Safety at Work Legislation (1974 and 1992), employers have a responsibility to protect the psychological as well as the physical well being of their employees.

Just as with physical hazards, employers are required to assess the psychological workplace risks that their employees face. Failure to put the proper infrastructure in place can leave an employer as open for compensation claims as for someone injured at work.

The EC 1989 Council Directive (89/391) makes employers responsible for making sure employees do not suffer harm through work, including violence at work.

However, where debriefing is concerned, there are a number of factors that must be taken into consideration including:

	Appropriateness of debriefing - Evidence has shown that debriefing is not only ineffective but may be harmful. Research shows that victims of RTA who received debriefing had worse outcomes at 4 months and 3 years than those left untreated.
	According to the Institute of Employment: "it is the intense re- exposure to the original traumatic incident during debriefing that has raised concerns that it can cause further harm."
	The institute for Employment also states, "Debriefing is widespread in industry because there is unquestioned belief in its success."
	"However, there is a lack of evidence that debriefing is effective in industrial settings, and some general research evidence that there are circumstances in which debriefing is harmful. At best its efficacy is neutral and at worst it can be harmful." Jan 2002
	Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and trauma injury can be the result of events that are not recognised as needing debriefing, for e.g. bullying, rape, witnessing an assault or injury, many traumatic events are single and involve only 1 or 2 individuals.
	Individuals themselves do not recognise that they have been traumatised and so do not flag to the organisation their need for help
	Organisations do not recognise the scale and type of event that is potentially dangerous to the employee.
	Workers can be traumatised by events outside of the workplace and of which their employer has no knowledge.

Employers who use existing occupational health services to provide emotional or psychological support for employees may not be providing them with appropriate, properly trained help.

	Counselling for trauma can actually embed the trauma deeper and cause further harm, as in debriefing, talking about the event involves emotional and psychological re exposure.
	Research suggests that the counsellor is at risk of psychological trauma by hearing about the event and so employers are potentially placing their own occupational staff at risk. Complex PTSD is a recognised condition caused by repeated or prolonged exposure to stressful and traumatic events, which can include hearing about traumatic events.
	PTSD and traumatic symptoms are widely misdiagnosed as various different forms of mental illness and so the sufferer often fails to be given the appropriate help.
	Recognising psychological trauma is not a routine component of occupational health training