Around 70 million working days lost due to mental health illness

Fast tracked access to treatment for working people with a mental health illness has been proposed in the Chief Medial Officer’s report ‘Employment is Good for Mental Health.’

The Chief Medical Officer wants the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to carry out research into the cost benefit of reducing the chance of someone falling out of work due to mental health illness.

An estimated 70 million working days were lost due to mental illness last year, at a cost of between £70m and £100m. This figure has been increasing, with a 24 per cent rise in the number of work days lost due to mental health since 2009.

Chief medical officer Professor Dame Sally Davies said: “The costs of mental illness to the economy are astounding. Through this report, I urge commissioners and decision-makers to treat mental health more like physical health.

“The WHO model of mental health promotion, mental illness prevention and treatment and rehabilitation should be adopted in public mental health in England.”

The report also revealed 75 per cent of people never receive treatment for their mental health illness.

The Mental Health Foundation has welcomed the proposals in the report but wants mental health services to be universally available and not favoured to those in employment.

Jenny Edwards, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, said: “Whilst we recognise the benefit of good quality work to Mental Health we are concerned about the suggestion to focus the fast tracking of care on people of working age who are at risk of falling out of work.

“A health service that is free at the point of delivery should ‘fast track’ all and not discriminate in favour of those who are economically active.

“We consider that there must be an investment in establishing a suite of evidence based solutions to mental ill health and support mental wellbeing, particularly targeted where there are the greatest inequalities.”

Highlighting that 75 per cent of mental illness starts before people reach 18 years old, the report called for more investment into early treatment for young people to prevent problems later in life which will create high costs to health services.

Professor Davies continued: “My report has also shown that investment in support for children and young people can help to prevent a multitude of problems in later life. Underinvestment in mental health services, particularly for young people, simply does not make sense economically.”

Patrick Watt, corporate director at Bupa Health Funding, said:

“While there has been an encouraging amount of discussion in the media about stress, anxiety and depression at work, mental health is still very much a taboo topic in UK offices.

"It’s up to leaders to break down this wall of silence. Changing a culture isn’t easy but it starts with setting the right example and by making sure everyone in the workforce knows effective treatments are available.

"Good mental health makes good business sense. This report clearly demonstrates why businesses need to do more to support the health and wellbeing of their people, and in turn help improve performance, productivity and business results."