Every year on 10th October the world is encouraged to focus on mental health with World Mental Health Day. This annual event was first held in 1992, and to help focus minds, every year there is a theme. In 2017, it’s 25th anniversary, the theme is ‘Mental health in the workplace’.
Work and mental health share a very important relationship. There is no doubt that work is good for you. It is also true that a ‘negative working environment’ can lead to physical and mental health problems.
WHO, in their information sheet for #WMHD2017, highlight that “depression and anxiety have a significant economic impact” with the estimated cost to the global economy of US$1 trillion per year in lost productivity.
Looking closer to home, the Centre for Mental Health stated that 91 million days are lost every year due to mental health problems in Britain with the total cost to employers estimated at nearly £26 billion each year. This is equivalent to £1,035 per employee in the UK workforce.
Although it’s important to state the economic case, it’s also just as important to consider the impact on the people ‘behind’ these dollars and pounds.
WHO, highlights some of the work-related risk factors for mental health. These include;
- inadequate health and safety policies;
- poor communication and management practices;
- limited participation in decision-making or low control over one’s area of work;
- low levels of support for employees;
- inflexible working hours; and
- unclear tasks or organisational objectives.
I would argue that these risks are also a check-list for the issues that each and every trade union rep across the UK try to address. I’d suggest to the government that if they are serious about supporting people with mental illness to access and remain in work, they should be making the job of a trade union rep, and trade unions themselves, easier, and not harder as they have been doing.
Mind, in their research confirmed a culture of fear and silence around mental health is costly to employers, including;
- More than one in five (21%) agreed that they had called in sick to avoid work when asked how workplace stress had affected them.
- 14% agreed that they had resigned and 42% had considered resigning when asked how workplace stress had affected them.
- 30% of staff disagree with the statement “I would feel able to talk openly with my line manager if I was feeling stressed”.
- 56% of employers said they would like to do more to improve staff wellbeing but don’t feel they have the right training or guidance.
In a report, ‘Mental health and employment’, published earlier this year, the TUC analysed official employment statistics. This analysis showed:
- Only 1 in 4 (26.2%) people with a mental illness lasting (or expected to last) more than a year are in work.
- Less than half (45.5%) of people with depression or anxiety lasting more than 12 months are in work.
The TUC highlighted at the time that one area where people with mental health conditions would be further disadvantaged was in the Governments imposition of employment tribunal fees. It is therefore welcome and hugely significant that these fees were ruled as unlawful in July. This is just one more example where the Government has work in opposition to its own stated aims to improve the situation.
Turning to the NHS, more recently I’ve been involved in a number of pieces of work focused on the subject in respect of health workers. The most recent, with the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust National Workforce Skills Development Unit. At ‘Enhancing management of psychological trauma & resilience experienced by staff working in the NHS’ we heard stats from an ongoing literature review that ‘in some papers up to 78% of nurse were reporting secondary trauma/compassion fatigue’. I’m hoping to blog about the event in the next few days to provide even more info about what went on.
One of the things that most impressed me was, even though resilience was used as a term, I’m often struck how this can be interpreted as ‘staff need to learn how to cope better with the problems that they face’. At the event it was stated on a number of occasions how the aim of this work is to reduce the need for staff resilience in NHS employers. We’ve got an article on this subject coming up in a future #MHNjournal.
BBC Radio 5 Live also recently picked up on the subject of people working in mental health organisations increasingly needing over 4 weeks sick leave to recover from their own mental health conditions. Their FOIs on the subject uncovered a 22% increase in the issue. You can hear some of my thoughts from two of the clips they used when I was interviewed on the subject here.
Even more recently, UNISON published stats from their own survey that showed a ‘rise in violent attacks by patients on NHS mental health staff’ on this subject though it’s important that this doesn’t become a health professional versus service user dispute, as John Baker highlights rather than ensuring workers get the best support to do their job in a compassionate way.
I’ve also seen provisional results from a Unite in Health survey which adds to the concerns being highlighted by mental health workers who desperately want to do the best job they can. This will be out soon.
Looking to the future, there’s a number of pieces of work that I’ll be developing over the next few months. One that I hope will have a positive impact on this issue is #MHNfuture.
Having worked with more and more mental health professionals since World Mental Health Day in 2016, I’ve been struck by the commitment of the people I’ve met to improve the care they provide to fellow citizens. No matter what the hurdles they have to jump over the next year, I have no doubt that when I reflect back in 2018, they’ll be closer to their goals of doing an even better job.
adaywithdave 