A quarter of staff absences in the NHS caused by psychiatric illness; solutions within our sector. 

Recent data from the NHS reveals that psychiatric illnesses were named as the leading cause of NHS employees taking time off work. Since December 2023, 25.6% of employees who took time off cited reasons such as anxiety, stress and depression as the cause. This correlates with statistics shared by Mind UK, that 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem each year in the UK.  

However, when we compare time taken off for mental health reasons in the wider UK job market, only 8-12% of people state this as the cause of their need to take time away. This is important to note because the difference is significant and the outcome is too: when NHS staff are unable to cope with their work, patients at their most vulnerable state are impacted. 

The need for reform in the NHS is rightly focused on patient outcomes, but these are reliant on staff outputs. As the new Labour government looks to address the challenges in the NHS, the health secretary will need to address workforce resilience and retention as a key part of any solution for the service. Sickness absence rates are known to relate to a huge array of factors. Within the spectrum of influencing factors, job satisfaction, employee engagement, workload, and effort-reward imbalance can and must be addressed within the NHS and the wider health and care sector.  

In the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan, commissioned by the previous government, a series of interventions to train, retain and reform the workforce were laid out. The Workforce Plan states retaining staff requires ‘allowing greater flexibility and career progression and improving culture, leadership and wellbeing, while continuing to focus on equality and inclusion’. 

Equality and inclusion need to become normal ways of being at work in our sector because it is diverse by nature and need: staff and service users alike are from differing backgrounds and experience vastly different facets of culture and lifestyle here in the UK. The NHS has always relied on staff from the global majority but they work side by side with some of the most privileged professionals in the UK; surgeons, specialists and consultants.  

The rhetoric we hear from the government about improving NHS culture will only become a reality through a transformation of employee relationships and dynamics across management and frontline teams. Can this address mental health and employment within the NHS? The evidence says yes; the NHS have been using the internationally renowned Individual Placement and Support (IPS), an evidence-based model of supported employment, to support job seekers with severe and enduring mental health (SMI).  

The NHS website states ‘Those supported by IPS work significantly more hours per month, and have higher earnings and better job tenure. Some show reduced rates of hospital admission and less time spent in hospital. Follow-up studies over 8-12 years confirm these better outcomes are maintained over the longer term. These schemes have also been shown to be cost-effective.’  

The IPS model that enables the NHS to support employment success in a niche group of people has core principles that can be applied to staff across the service and can have a positive influence on working practice across our sector. The IPS model harbours equality and inclusivity through ongoing employment support to ensure duties and responsibilities are manageable, it prescribes multilevel support from colleagues with different specialisms and seniority, and it mandates ongoing self-assessment for employers through a fidelity scale of measurement. 

Social Interest Group will be facilitating a leadership day in which we look at the theory and practice of fostering equality and inclusivity across our organisation for the benefit of staff, residents and participants, as these principles must work in synergy for both staff and service users. The siloed practice has had a detrimental impact on staff and patients in the NHS, and we are now starting to lead our sector and counter this division with organisational unity and inclusivity in praxis. In seeking to create a just culture, it is important to recognise that cultural norms and practices in every organisation have an enabling or negative impact on staff and that this correlates directly with service user experience.  

Raje Ballagan-Evans, Policy and Impact Manager