2024 World Mental Health Day (10 October)

2024 World Mental Health Day

OSH Stakeholder Alliance calls for action to tackle workplace mental health risks

Leading health and safety organizations in the UK are uniting on October 10, World Mental Health Day, to address poor mental health at work and urge the government, businesses, and individuals in charge of workplace health and safety to address this problem.

The Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) Stakeholder Alliance is outlining several recommendations to address the alarming issue of work-related stress, depression, and anxiety, which the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) reported affected 875,000 people in Great Britain in 2022–2023 and resulted in the loss of over 17 million working days in that year alone.

The OSH Alliance urges the UK Government to create a national workplace mental health plan that targets and assists all businesses in developing the capacity required to manage risks connected to mental health in the workplace. The alliance requests this in a new white paper titled “Prioritizing mental health in the workplace.”

It also exhorts companies to evaluate and critically analyze their safety and health leadership, commitment, strategy, and culture to guarantee that their workplaces promote good mental health.

The OSH Alliance’s white paper prioritizes action for smaller organizations because, according to the Federation of Small Businesses, over 99 percent of businesses in the UK are small or medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are defined as having fewer than 250 employees. Many employers lack the resources or capacity that larger businesses do.

It encourages those with responsibility for occupational safety and health (OSH), such as those in HR, to use OSH ideas and tools to help organizations—especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)—prevent and manage psychosocial risks and safeguard and enhance mental health. Furthermore, it demands that the government guarantee sufficient funding to the HSE and local authorities so they may conduct the necessary levels of inspection and enforcement to support the organizational strategy for managing and preventing psychological hazards.

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The OSH Alliance projects that the collective efforts outlined in its white paper will greatly lessen the burden of work-related mental illness by 2030. According to Deloitte, this illness presently costs the economy £51 billion annually.

The OSH Alliance projects that the collective efforts outlined in its white paper will greatly lessen the burden of work-related mental illness by 2030. According to Deloitte, this illness presently costs the economy £51 billion annually.

Nine of the top safety and health organizations are part of the OSH Stakeholder Alliance: the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH), the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors (CIEHF), the National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health (NEBOSH), the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), the British Occupational Hygiene Society (BOHS), the British Safety Council (BSC), the British Safety Industry Federation (BSIF), and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA). At the moment, the BSIF serves as its chair.