Government Review Recommends Routine Monitoring of Employee Mental Health and Wellbeing

The output of Thriving at Work, a review of mental health and employers, commissioned by the Government and led by Lord Dennis Stevenson and Paul Farmer was published 26th October 2017.

The accompanying statements introducing the review on Gov.UK include:

‘The most important recommendation is that all employers, regardless of size or industry, should adopt 6 ‘mental health core standards’ that lay basic foundations for an approach to workplace mental health.’

One of the mental health core standards is ‘the routine monitoring of employee mental health and wellbeing’

Supported by a growing body of research including Deloitte’s Mental Health and Wellbeing in Employment Study, there is now wide consensus that greater socio-economic benefits come from investing in assessment and prevention rather than post event remediation.

We do not wait for someone to have a heart attack before offering them a routine blood pressure check. Routine monitoring of mental health needs to be universally adopted. Implementation of the Thriving at Work recommendations would be a major step in helping this become a long awaited reality. What is measured can be managed.

It was a privilege to be invited to contribute to the review and everyone responsible for producing it should be congratulated.