Mental Health at Work and Mental Health First Aiders

Mental Health at work is something of particular interest to me. I had post-natal depression following the birth of my first child and struggled with it for approximately 3 years before I finally felt I had it under control. It affected all aspects of my life at home and at work and I am so pleased to see the upsurge of understanding and conversation surround this subject. So it was with some surprise that I read the findings of a recent review conducted by the HSE on Mental Health first Aiders in the Workplace, if you would like to know my thoughts, please read on.

The Emergence of Mental Health at Work

Wednesday 10^th October is World Mental Health Day and I’ve been reflecting on the recent report findings published by the HSE regarding Mental Health First Aiders.

Mental Health is an area that has traditionally been overlooked in the workplace, regarded as something not work related and generally speaking, a taboo of society that people both in and out of work are reluctant to talk about.

Thankfully this is changing, but change takes time. We as a society, have started to shift our thinking and this is now starting to transfer into the workplace.

Considering the emergence of mental health at work as an issue now being discussed openly in the media and in board rooms, I was surprised by the recent review conducted by the HSE and its findings published in RR1135 - ‘Summary of the evidence on the effectiveness of Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) training in the workplace’ http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrhtm/rr1135.htm

HSE Review

The review centred around 3 main questions: -

1. Has there been an increase in awareness of mental health amongst employees (i.e. all staff

employed by an organisation, including leaders/managers) receiving MHFA training?

2. Is there evidence of improved management of mental health in the workplace as a consequence

of the introduction of MHFA training?

3. Is there evidence that the content of the MHFA training has been considered for workplace

settings?

As someone who works in the field of health and safety and who has a keen interest in mental health issues due to my own experience with post-natal depression, it would seem to me that the review questions were ill thought out, and the subsequent report quite simply unhelpful!

The report found:-

• There is consistent evidence that MHFA training raises employees’ awareness of mental ill‐ health conditions, including signs and symptoms.
• There is limited evidence that MHFA training leads to sustained improvement in the ability of those trained to help colleagues experiencing mental ill‐health.
• There is no evidence that the introduction of MHFA training has improved the organisational management of mental health in workplaces.

Are the Findings Fair?

Anyone who works in the field of health and safety knows how long it can take to changes attitudes. Every time I speak to a new potential customer, I ask them if they have heard of mental health first aiders? Sometimes they have, sometimes they haven’t. However, I haven’t met anyone that thinks it’s a bad idea! The point is, tis is still a new concept, it is filtering through but it takes time.

The review found there was ‘evidence that MHFA training raises employees awareness of mental ill-health conditions’ – this is a positive and perfectly logical finding.

However, the finding that; ‘there is limited evidence that MHFA training leads to sustained improvement in the ability of those trained to help colleagues experiencing mental ill-health’ gives me 2 main causes for concern.

1. It strikes me that you can’t introduce something like this and expect employees to come flocking overnight. This must be about trust and it will take time.
2. What exactly are the HSE expecting the first aiders to do, what does ‘help’ mean?

In relation to my first concern, for me it comes back to the fact that this has historically been a taboo subject and to varying degrees frowned upon. Just because you have trained staff to become mental-health first aiders, employees can’t suddenly be expected to confide in them. Many organisations will also have some ‘history’ associated with mental health. They may have dealt with it badly in the past and it will take time to gain employees confidence, and of course some staff are just going to feel uncomfortable talking about it.

My second concern relates to the role Mental Health First Aiders are expected to play. They are not health professionals. As far as I can see Mental Health First Aiders are trained to help individuals recognize the signs and symptoms of mental health issues and help support those who may be suffering not to prevent it in the first place or treat the symptoms. I think the concept of help needs further explorations.

The finding that gives me greatest concern is; ‘There is no evidence that the introduction of MHFA training has improved the organisational management of mental health in workplaces.’ Is this the reason for having mental health first aiders – I don’t think so. Surely this is equivalent to saying that the introduction of traditional First Aiders has done nothing to improve the organisational management of injury prevention’. It seems to me a completely illogical statement.

I don’t understand how you can look at mental health first aiders in isolaton. Surely the introduction of mental health first aiders into the workplace is part of an overall strategy. A business can’t expect to appoint a mental health a first aider and for all mental-health issues within the workplace to fall into part of a well-managed organisational strategy, and I can’t understand why the HSE review would suggest that this would be an expected outcome.

Sadly, I think this report is poorly thought out and very badly timed. There is so much positive talk about mental health currently and we all need to jump on the wave. We need to give concepts such as mental health first aiders time to ‘bed in’. Let people become comfortable with the idea, give organisations time to build an organisational strategy and explore new methods. Fantastic new initiatives have recently been launched such as  www.mentalhealthatwork.org.uk I have no doubt the HSE did not have the intention of creating negativity in relation of mental health, but I fear that could have been an unintended outcome.

Let’s get behind these strategies on International Mental Health Awareness Day. Let’s spread the word about Mental Health First Aiders, the Mental Health at Work website and the fantastic work carried out by Mind, The Royal Foundation and their partners. The business world is just waking up to mental health at work and in my view we should promote awareness and understanding as much as we can.

I for one will certainly be undertaking Mental Health First Aider training in the future, and signing up to some of the amazing courses offered on the Mental Health at Work website http://mhaw.uk.com/training/

If you would like to discuss mental health strategies in your workplace, Helen at Buzz is happy to talk to you about the area which is of particular interest to her. Please do get in touch

Health and Safety law doesn’t apply to me – I have less than 5 employees!

There’s a commonly-believed myth that health and safety law doesn’t apply to businesses with less than five employees.

However, this belief is wrong and can place your business and your employees at significant risk!

This misconception stems from a strange quirk written into health and safety law. The Health and Safety at Work Act tells all employers that they are required to:

“Prepare a written statement ………………… of his general policy with respect to the health and safety at work of his employees and the organisation and arrangements …………. for carrying out that policy”

 The Health and Safety at Work Act, written in 1974, requires that this policy should be written down.

When the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations were issued some years later (1992 originally), they required that although all employers must have such arrangements in place, employers are only required to record them in writing if they have 5 or more employees.

These regulations also specify the requirement for employers to carry out Risk Assessments. Again, employers are only required to record the significant findings if the employer has 5 or more employees.

“Where the employer employs five or more employees, he shall record—

(a) the significant findings of the assessment; and

(b) any group of his employees identified by it as being especially at risk.”

There’s much confusion surrounding this, but failure to recognise that you must thoroughly assess risk and put a health and safety policy in place – even if only verbally – could land you in hot water.

For example, I was contacted once by an employer with only two employees. His business had been randomly inspected by an HSE inspector. The director was unable to demonstrate – either verbally or in writing – that they were aware of their health and safety responsibilities nor had they any arrangements in place to manage the risks created by their work activities.

As a result, a huge financial burden was then placed on the business. They were required to pay the HSE Fee for Intervention  (currently £129 per hour) and were served with four improvement notices, all of which required action by a certain date.

The improvement notices required training, inspections, surveys and the provision of an LEV system. The cost to the business – all at once – was huge.

Had the company director been aware of his legal duties and put in place a simple health and safety management system that could grow with his business, these costs would have been met incrementally and slowly, not placing a huge financial burden on the business all at once.

But most importantly, the lack of arrangements for managing health and safety placed staff at significant risk for a prolonged period. Staff were freely inhaling carcinogenic welding fume with no controls in place, noise levels were excessive potentially leading to hearing loss in future, and pressurised systems on site had not been inspected.

The financial cost was significant but the risk to human health was even more so. Given that many conditions develop over time and the nature of the hazards to which the workers were exposed, the potential for a delayed effect on their health in the future remains.

Personally, I would always advocate having a simple policy that states how you manage health and safety and record the significant findings of your risk assessments, regardless of your business size. No matter how experienced you are in the world of business, it can be a very stressful event when an HSE Inspector comes to call. It is always difficult when we feel we are under scrutiny, and we won’t always think as clearly as we would like to. Write it down in a simple format and it is all there at your fingertips whenever you need it.

Here at Buzz Safety, we are very happy to meet for an hour’s free consultation to help you better understand your health and safety obligations. Please feel free to contact us, whatever your health and safety query

07572 464445

helen.byram@buzzsafety.co.uk

A question that we’re frequently asked at Buzz Safety is ‘Why is Health and Safety important to my small business?’.

Other regular questions and statements we hear include:

• ‘Why is it important and what will it do for my business?’
• ‘Why should I bother?’
• ‘It doesn’t apply to me anyway because I have less than five employees’ (Which is an incorrect statement, by the way!)

So, where do I start? There is so much to say, and far too much to write in one blog.

There are the obvious answers:

• To reduce accidents
• It is required by law
• It makes staff feel valued and happy
• For peace of mind and to avoid prosecutions.

But these obvious answers often fall on deaf ears.

So, what can a simple, yet effective health and safety management system do for your small business?

Well, in a nutshell, this is what; surely all businesses want to be profitable. And to be profitable, staff need to be as productive as possible. Productive staff are borne out of happiness and high morale, which often comes from a feeling of being looked after and valued.

Plus, in order to maximise sales, a business requires a good public image.

These can be achieved through a tailored health and safety management system.

In truth, the list of reasons why you should care about health and safety could go on and on.

Set aside the fear of prosecution – although the potential for prosecution is real and should not be ignored. In my view, fear of prosecution is way down the list of reasons for putting health and safety systems in place – there are so many positive reasons that come before that.

Sound and effective health and safety management, as part of a good overall management, will help you to achieve a successful, profitable business.

In my view, at the end of the day, good management of health and safety can be summed up as good business sense.

I will continue to explore the benefits of a good health and safety system, along with potential consequences of not managing health and safety in future blogs.

In the meantime, I am happy to speak to any business, small or large about their health and safety needs, in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire and beyond.