Mercury Support

12/10/2026

Martyn’s Law is expected to come into force in spring 2027, so this autumn is a good time to start preparing...

The law is named after Martyn Hett, one of the 22 people who lost their lives in the Manchester Arena attack in 2017, and follows years of campaigning by his mum, Figen Murray. It’s about making sure venues are better prepared to keep people safe.

There are two tiers, based on how many people may be at a premises at the same time.

🔸 Standard tier, 200 to 799 people
🔸 Enhanced tier, 800 or more

Three things you can do now.

1️⃣ Note a realistic busiest-time headcount for each site
2️⃣ Work out who the responsible person is for each one
3️⃣ Think through how your team would evacuate, invacuate, lock down and communicate if an attack were suspected

The SIA’s guidance is here 👉 https://www.gov.uk/guidance/understanding-martyns-law-and-the-sias-role-as-regulator

09/10/2026

Tomorrow is World Mental Health Day, so here's a gentle reminder that the long shifts, late finishes and packed Saturday nights take it out of everyone.... from the KP to head office.

Some tips for looking after your team....

🗓️ Get rotas out early so people can plan their lives around them
☕ Protect breaks, even on the busiest shifts
💬 Make time for proper check-ins
📞 Make sure everyone knows who they can talk to and where to find support

And looking after YOU....

🛌 Treat your days off as days off, phone included
🚶 Get some fresh air between shifts when you can
🗣️ Talk to someone when it's getting a bit much, you won't be the only one feeling it

If you or your team need someone to talk to, Hospitality Action supports people working across the industry 👉 https://www.hospitalityaction.org.uk/

Look after each other out there 🧡

07/10/2026

Opening a new site before Christmas.... and compliance is the LAST thing anyone wants to think about in opening week 😅

The good news is most of our clients are up and running on the Mercury Platform within a week*, so the checks are in place before the first customer walks in....

From day one you've got....

🔸 Digital due diligence checks for every site
🔸 Audits, risk assessments and accident & incident reporting in one place
🔸 As many users as you need, from head office to the pass
🔸 Our Helpdesk on hand when something comes up

And when the next opening comes along, the same standards roll straight out to that site too.

Got a new site on the horizon? Book a 15-minute chat and we'll talk you through how it works 🧡

*Based on internal measurements with our current client base

05/10/2026

Monday morning game time.... it's SPOT THE ISSUE 👀

We've staged a walk-in fridge that's having a bit of a day, and there are four food safety slip-ups hiding in the picture.

Three of them you'll probably get before your coffee's cooled down.... the fourth is a bit sneakier.

Pop in the comments how many you can spot (and what they are), and we'll share the answers in the first comment tomorrow morning.

The prize is bragging rights 😂

Good luck 🧡

02/10/2026

Birmingham has got LOUDER 🎸

Huge congratulations to the NEOS Hospitality team on opening Bonnie Rogues on Temple Street on 25 September....

The £1m refurbishment has turned the site into a live music and sports pub, with live music SIX nights a week.... presumably the seventh is for everyone's ears to recover 😂

Well done everyone, and enjoy every loud minute of it 🧡

01/10/2026

'The list of people who need a right to work check got a LOT longer this morning....

From today, 1 October, the rules stretch beyond employees to casual, agency, temporary, zero-hours and gig workers.... and hospitality leans pretty heavily on casual and agency staff, so for most operators that's a good chunk of the rota.

A few things that keep it simple across every site....

✅ One process that every site follows
✅ Checks done BEFORE anyone starts work
✅ A look at your agency and contractor arrangements too, as responsibility can reach the business using the worker depending on how the contract chain is set up
✅ Records kept somewhere you can find them on the day someone asks

None of it needs to be complicated.... but it does need to look the same at every site.

The Home Office employer guide is here 👉 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/right-to-work-checks-employers-guide

Our July blog rounds up the other employment law changes landing this autumn 👉 https://mercurysupport.co.uk/employment-law-changes-october-2026/

And if you'd like a hand getting it in place, our HR team at Mercury365 is happy to help 🧡

23/09/2026

One of our clients used to spend SIX HOURS putting together a compliance report.

With Mercury, it takes 35 seconds.

We know…

That sounds like one of those ridiculous marketing claims where you immediately think, “yeah, alright.”

But there’s a pretty simple reason it saves so much time!

The report was never actually one job.

First, someone had to find everything…

Paper checklists from different sites. Training certificates. Incident records. Audit results. And whatever else had ended up in a folder, filing cabinet or someone’s inbox.

Then came pulling it all together, analysing the data, building the graphs and making the whole thing look vaguely presentable.

BORING...

With Mercury, that information is already in one place because checks, audits, training records and incidents are logged as they happen.

Then the platform does the rest.

📊 AI identifies trends and recurring issues.
📄 The report is written for you.
📈 The graphs are already built.
💬 And if someone inevitably asks another question, Ask AI can dig through the data for you.

Choose your dates and, around 35 seconds later, you’ve got a report ready for an EHO, insurer, board meeting… whoever needs it.

That leaves another 5 hours, 59 minutes and 25 seconds to do something more useful.

Or go to the pub. We’re not here to judge 😊

If compliance reporting is still swallowing half a day, we’d be happy to show you what the 35-second version looks like!

www.mercurysupport.co.uk

17/09/2026

We’ve been building again….

And this time it’s COSHH.

The new COSHH module is now live inside the Mercury platform, and we’re VERY pleased with this one.

Anyone who has managed COSHH properly will know the glamorous process….

Find the Safety Data Sheet.
Read through pages of technical information.
Work out what actually matters.
Write the assessment.
Add the controls.
Send it around the business.
Chase everyone to read it.
Then remember to review the whole thing again next year.

Great fun...

Mercury now handles a LOT of that work for you.

📄 Upload the Safety Data Sheet and AI creates a draft COSHH assessment, including hazards, exposure routes and suggested controls.

👀 A human reviews and approves it before it goes anywhere.

🏢 Roll assessments out by role, site, region or brand, with site-specific controls added where needed.

✍️ Send them directly to relevant staff for review and sign-off.

📁 Keep the completed records and PDFs stored centrally in Mercury.

🔄 Track when assessments are due for review, so they don’t quietly go out of date.

For businesses managing dozens of substances across multiple sites, this can turn a huge manual admin job into something much more manageable.

We’ve tried to take a job everybody HAS to do and make it considerably less painful.

The COSHH module is available now.

Want a look? Give us a shout and we’ll show you around 🧡

Send a message to learn more

11/09/2026

Meet Matt Galloway, our Commercial Director 👋

Matt has spent his entire career in compliance, health & safety and food safety, working with businesses across the UK and beyond.

Before joining Mercury, he held senior commercial roles with the British Safety Council, Shield Safety Group, Complete Food Safety and Food Alert, where he spent more than five years working with some of the biggest names in hospitality across the UK, Europe and the Middle East.

At Mercury, Matt is responsible for shaping our commercial strategy and making sure what we offer continues to reflect what our clients actually need.

For Matt, that means much more than simply selling a compliance service.

It means understanding how a business operates, what pressures its teams are under and where Mercury can genuinely make life easier — whether that is through food safety, health & safety, HR, licensing, training or our technology.

Hospitality remains particularly close to his heart.

Having spent much of his career supporting restaurants, hotels and hospitality teams, he knows the sector inside out and loves the variety that comes with it.

One minute he might be talking to an independent café. The next, a national hotel group.

And the bit he enjoys most?

Seeing the relief when a client realises they no longer have to worry about every little piece of compliance themselves.

Or, as we like to put it…

Compliance. Handled.

Outside work, Matt can usually be found playing football, attempting to improve his golf, lifting heavy things up and putting them back down again, or spending time with his wife and son.

Great to have you leading the commercial side of Mercury, Matt 🧡

28/07/2026

The Employment Rights Act is rolling out in waves, and the next one lands in October ⚖️

A few of the highlights: you'll become legally responsible for how customers treat your staff. Tribunal claims get a six-month window instead of three. And from January 2027, unfair dismissal rights kick in at six months' service, including for anyone you've hired since the start of this July.

James, our resident HR enthusiast, has broken the whole thing down on a blog: what's already changed, what's coming next, and the six things to sort before October.

Read it here: https://mercurysupport.co.uk/employment-law-changes-october-2026/