Increasing levels of mental illness

Yes you might wonder why when the UK is talking about the work capability test and it being unfit for purpose am I going to write about increasing levels of mental ill health. I guess because I said my piece here last week and because I then went and said my piece in several other places on line as well and because for me it is still very much part of the same thing.

Fitness for work

So what has this got to do with increasing mental illness? I guess not a lot on the surface however my real push here is to consider why so many people aren’t fit for work.

Some people have sat down and looked what abilities make a person fit for work and have come up with this test, which they consider to be reasonable and they seem to be unable to see why so many people are appealing their decisions. The problem is that they have not considered that actually they have completely missed testing for a whole sub set of skills that people require to be fit for work. The ability of the person to deal with workplace/ job associated stress and this could cover things such as

·         Shared environment/ work station, simply someone moving the things you are working with. Not so easy for a person with obsessive compulsive disorder

·         Discussion with work colleagues or lack of

·         Frustration in management strategy- no clear goals, changing of priorities

·         Self confidence and self reliance

·         Emotional handling in general

And actually I don’t think they are alone in this. In fact it seems that only those people who have had to deal with the people suffering these problems have gotten a really good handle on why certain people are not fit for work.

I think if you asked all the employers in this country to come up with a test they would come up with something pretty much the same as what we have gotten however I do not believe that they would employ someone based purely on a fitness for work test and that as is seen at interview you would have to explain, with words, why you are actually fit for work and not just any work but this particular job too.

In many ways I see the stigma associated to mental health in the work place as being rightly formulated but don’t mistake this for it being rightly attributed. I see the reasons why people shy away from employing people with a history of mental instability as a reticence to employ people who have not addressed their issues, nor sort any help to maintain their good mental health, and are therefore very prone to the same problems as their past and are very likely to be unreliable as an employee. And who can blame them for that. However it is naive to continue believing that people have not sort help, nor that they could not be reliable now, the problem is in finding a way to judge whether a person has/is or not.

The fact is that when it comes to work it is far easier to assess whether a person will physically be able to do the job than it is whether they have the mental resilience for it and unfortunately it is also far easier to see when someone has achieved physical strength rather than mental resilience. Sadly many employers still see that good mental health is not something that can be taught or trained for, you just have to have it. As a person they may well believe that this can be achieved but as soon as they get into the work place it seems they think that it is not part of their remit to help in this area.

It seems crazy that when so many places take bullying, racism/ prejudice so seriously that employers aren’t looking out for the mental health of their staff but I don’t believe they are. It doesn’t seem to me that they feel it is up to them to do anything to maintain good mental health at all. If we haven’t learnt this then the employer is not going to help the employee maintain it once employed and I think this is an oversight.

In the last few months several stories in the press have run with how stress is now the biggest cause of sick leave

Stress is now the top reason for sick leave

http://www.northantset.co.uk/lifestyle/spree-with-jill-robinson/stress_is_now_the_top_reason_for_sick_leave_1_3159370#

Stress leads to workers' sick leave http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-55708/Stress-leads-workers-sick-leave.html

and it seems only a hop skip and a jump down the road to reach full blown mental illness yet they still seem to be ignoring it. And if you’re wondering about whether mental illness has increased then let me inform you that it has.

From Adult psychiatric morbidity in England, 2007 http://www.ic.nhs.uk/webfiles/publications/mental%20health/other%20mental%20health%20publications/Adult%20psychiatric%20morbidity%2007/APMS%2007%20(FINAL)%20Standard.pdf Table 2.4 (page 41) Prevalence of CMD (common mental disorders) in past week in 1993, 2000 and 2007,

All adults	1993	2000	2007
Mixed anxiety and depressive disorder	7.5	9.4	9.7
Generalised anxiety disorder	4.4	4.7	4.7
Depressive episode	2.2	2.8	2.6
All phobias	2.2	2.8	2.6
Obsessive compulsive disorder	1.4	1.2	1.3
Panic disorder	1.0	0.7	1.2
Any CMD	15.5	17.5	17.6

(see the methods for how they assessed who did or did not have symptoms of these disorders, equally please note  An individual can have more than one CMD)

However tracking down the causes of this growing trend are simple and though work places are tough environments emotionally they are not the only environment we are subjected, however I don’t believe that excuses employers from making an effort to aid people in dealing with the work place. When all said and done they need good workers as much as we need a good work place and while so many people wish for us to move off benefit they don’t seem prepared to assist in the process.

I feel it is a blindness to the plight of everyone’s good mental health that something is not done and the Government seems to be reinforcing the attitude that the employer need do nothing by pushing the people in recovery as if they are not even working towards a return to work. They are saying that actually the work place is not the issue in any way when in reality the work place has its part to play in the problems.