Employers told to tackle work related stress to reduce sickness bill

Employers told to tackle work related stress to reduce sickness bill Oona Mashta

The guidance, Promoting Mental Wellbeing through Productive and Healthy Working Conditions: Guidance for Employers, can be seen at www.nice.org.uk/PH22

Published 9 November 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b4607

Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b4607

The NHS in England, along with other employers, needs to promote mental wellbeing among its staff in a bid to cut the multimillion pound cost of days off resulting from work related stress, says new guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

The cost of work related stress, depression, and anxiety among NHS staff in the United Kingdom results in an estimated loss of about 4.1 million working days a year at a cost of £700m (780m; $1.2bn), estimates NICE.

But the problem was not just about staff taking time off, it said. "Presenteeism" (where staff feel obliged to go to work but are not in a fit state to be there, resulting in reduced productivity) was also a problem. NICE estimates that about 6.2 million working days are lost in the NHS in the UK throughpresenteeism at a cost of £1bn.

The guidelines on promoting wellbeing at work, which are mandatory for the NHS, the largest single employer in the UK with 1.5 million staff, call for improved line management to boost mental health among staff.

The guidance proposes simple steps, such as positive feedback to staff, including praise as well as criticism, making them feel valued, and rewarding them with small perks such as the odd afternoon off and time to attend seminars. Launching the guidance, a panel of NHS advisers said it was important that staff could see that things were done in a just and fair way.....................