A report that went before Wirral Council’s employment and appointments committee on Tuesday (6 March) reveals that mental health is the third highest known cause of staff absence at the local authority.
The report estimates that each member of staff will miss an average of 4.7 working days in 2017/18 due to mental health related conditions, which could include anxiety, depression and stress.
It adds if the projection is correct that this will be the highest figure since 2010/11.
The report also notes that between April 2017 and 30 November 2017, there were 1,376 staff members absent from work due to sickness.
According to the report, 247 of these were absent due to mental health related conditions, which is around 18% of all the staff absent.
The report also cites a 2016 survey by the public sector trade union Unison, which found that 73% of council staff reported rising levels of stress.
“This would suggest that mental health related conditions are increasingly affecting a significant number of local authority employees nationally,” the report states.
“This is consistent with Wirral absence levels due to mental health related conditions.
“Sickness absence is a priority area for the council and a range of initiatives including a focus on mental health are in place,” the report adds.
“These activities include targeted approaches for specific areas and universal programmes for all staff with an ethos to support all employees across the organisation.
“Monitoring and oversight has been further developed to ensure accountability at all organisational levels is in place.”
This follows a report earlier this week highlighting the fact that work-related stress in the NHS is on the rise. Read more here.
In this episode of the Safety & Health Podcast, ‘Burnout, stress and being human’, Heather Beach is joined by Stacy Thomson to discuss burnout, perfectionism and how to deal with burnout as an individual, as management and as an organisation.
We provide an insight on how to tackle burnout and why mental health is such a taboo subject, particularly in the workplace.
