The awards encourage employers to promote a healthier workforce and covers a wide range of topics including health promotion, occupational health and safety, employability, mental health and well-being, community involvement, and health and the environment.

Kwik Fit Insurance, based in Uddingston, Scotland, received the Gold Healthy Working Lives Award following the introduction of a series of projects aimed at improving the health and well-being of its 900 staff and is the first private sector organisation in its region to be recognised in this way.

Workers benefit from regular health checks including weight, cholesterol levels and heart health, as well as being given the opportunity to take part in a blood donation programme.

In addition, staff enjoy a wide selection of healthy food options at the on-site bistro, while the appointment of a dedicated Environmental Manager has helped the company reduce its carbon footprint by lowering its paper, plastic and energy wastage.

Dorothy Sneddon, Occupational Health Advisor at Kwik Fit Insurance, was responsible for co-ordinating and delivering the initiatives that contributed to the award.

Dorothy said: “The Gold Award is the culmination of two years hard work and we’re delighted with the recognition. Our staff have embraced the initiatives introduced into the centre and I’m delighted that we’ve been able to have a positive impact upon their lives.”

The Scottish Centre for Healthy Working Lives was established in April 2005, and is playing a key role in helping to reduce work-related ill health by 20 per cent and days lost to ill health by 30 per cent.

Following Lord Darzi’s NHS Next Stage review, and a review of mental health service delivery, ten strategic health authorities will oversee the regional and local delivery of new mental health policies, with support from the new Development Unit.

The NMHDU will continue the momentum in co-ordinating support for key mental health projects such as:

• improving access to talking therapies;
• promoting equalities in mental health services for race, gender and age groups;
• promoting social inclusion and social justice for people with mental health problems;
• promoting well-being and mental health for the whole population;
• supporting effective mental health commissioning.

Phil Hope, minister for Care Services, said “New Horizons and the Darzi review mean we must actively promote public mental health and well-being, as well as spreading best practice and maintaining world-class mental health services everywhere. The National Mental Health Development Unit will help us do this.”

The new unit will be headed by Dr Ian McPherson, former head of the National Institute for Mental Health.

The plan will involve training additional psychotherapists and specialist nurses, and establishing psychotherapy centres in each NHS trust by the end of 2009. These centres will be linked into an advice network consisting of Jobcentres, doctor’s surgeries and the NHS Direct telephone services The network will be staffed with support personnel, counsellors, and psychotherapists, and will be initially accessed through Doctor’s surgeries, however, the longer goal is to have a system of self-referral.

Regular predictions of long term mental illness associated with the recession, along with expected problems in getting workers back to work after absence have clearly spurred the UK Government into action. Alan Johnson said “In the current economic downturn, the potential exists for more people to become anxious or depressed. If someone is feeling down after losing their job, the best solution is a new job and we are helping people find them wherever possible. But, in some cases, depression and anxiety can be a barrier to getting another job

Current figures put around 6 million UK adults as suffering from depression or anxiety, and many of these are on incapacity benefit. In addition, around 40% of long term sickness benefit claimants are know to be affected by stress. The CIPD’s 2008 Absence Survey put mental health and stress as the number one cause of long term absence from work for non manual workers.

Work and Pensions Secretary, James Purnell, said it was vital to tackle the issue as soon as possible. “We know pushing people onto inactive benefits can lead to a lifetime of dependency. We are working across government to give the help people need to stay in, or get back to, work.”

The research shows that 75% of workers who have been off work with depression report continued symptoms of mild to moderate depression. 45% of those off with a physical illness (back pain, illness, hospital treatment) reported similar symptoms of depression. Employees interviewed expressed concern about confiding their mental health issues to an employer, and were more worried about telling their line managers about mental health issues than physical illness, despite the acknowledgement that it probably affected their ability to function at work to a greater degree.

The report concludes that there is a “consistent lack of follow-up by occupational health, line managers and human resources on employee’s general health and psychological well being after returning to work.”

The Mental Health Foundation claim that preferences were shown in adjusting work patterns and pressures for those with physical ailments over those with mental health issues, despite the latter’s reporting high job stress and the cause of their illness being work-related. The majority of those who had been absent with mental health issues reported a re-occurrence of sick leave associated with the symptoms of depression.

The Foundation is advocating the use of tailored return to work plans, written in partnership between the employee, employer, GP, HR and insurance, and suggests longer periods of monitoring and support for returning employees and awareness training for colleagues.

When the timeframe is increased from “last month” to “last year” more than half of workers surveyed felt that they had gone to work when too ill to do so, compared with 12% who had stayed at home. When compared with figures from a similar study in 2004, the figures were strikingly different. Comparing with the current figures, less than half (19%) went to work ill, whilst twice as many (25%) stayed at home.

Whilst many may think that workers felt pressure from employers to attend, most stated reasons relating to colleagues, such as not wanting to let them down, or increasing work load on colleagues, as their reason for coming to work.

Commenting on the results, Brendan Barber, said: “Too often we are told that British workers are always taking bogus sickies or taking time off at the first sign of a sniffle. But the truth is that we are a nation of mucus-troopers who struggle into work even when we are too ill because we do not want to let colleagues, clients or our employer down.”