FEATURE
REDRESSING THE BALANCE
In light of the Mental Health Taskforce’s report and the government’s pledge to improve mental health services, Tomorrow’s Health & Safety take a closer look at workplace wellbeing.
The Mental Health Taskforce was formed in March 2015 to compile the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health for the NHS, in a bid to put mental health on a par with physical health.
The Taskforce’s recommendations, which were published in February 2016, form the basis of the government’s proposals to support 1million more people with mental health issues in accessing quality care, by 2020/2021.
The Five Year Plan for mental health draws on opinion from those suffering with mental ill health and their families, and industry professionals as well as academic, economic and clinical evidence to suggest ways to improve support for a vast array of individuals. The plan outlines ways to help children and young people, people living with severe mental health problems, postnatal and prenatal women, those with eating disorders, as well as the unemployed and those struggling to get back into work because of poor mental health.
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HELPING THE UNEMPLOYED The Taskforce’s recommendations suggest a number of ways to help those that are unemployed, with a mental illness, to gain the appropriate support to move back into employment.
In line with the Taskforce’s recommendations the government has proposed to double access to talking therapies for people suffering from conditions such as anxiety or depression, by investing £308million.
The government has also pledged to support 29,000 more people each year with mental health problems to find or stay in work by increasing these therapies and implementing more mental health experts in job centres.
In a bid to help the unemployed find work the government will spend £50million on Individual Placement and Support Programmes, which they state saves £6,000 per person due to reduced inpatient costs.
The Centre for Mental Health, an independent mental health charity,
references the EQOLISE project on their website which compared IPS programmes with other back to work services across six European countries. The project’s findings illustrated that those enrolled in IPS programmes were 55% more likely to gain employment and work for longer, the costs were cheaper than most services in the first six months and hospitalisation rates were reduced for those who gained work.
Finally in reaction to the Taskforce’s recommendations the government has said it will invest £50milllion to double the amount of employment advisors.
WHAT ABOUT PEOPLE
ALREADY IN WORK? One of the recommendations in the report draws attention to improving mental health support for NHS employees. We caught up with Vicki Nash, Head of Policy and Campaigns, at MIND who commented: “We are particularly pleased to see that there will be a focus on improving the mental wellbeing of staff working
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