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March/April 2023 issue

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Leadership
Mental health
Opinion

Mental health has to be monitored for it to be managed

Open-access content Monday 25th September 2017
From the archive:  Just so you know, this article is more than 3 years old.

There had been rumblings about mental health problems in the industry for several years and it was brought to the fore at the health summit of construction executives in January 2016. The company heads were told that stress and depression accounted for one in five of the 69,000 work-related annual cases of ill health. The suicide rate for low-skilled males in the sector is almost four times the all-occupation average.

These figures prompted the Health in Construction Leadership Group and its partners to create a model based on mental health awareness training and directing those who need help to professional services. The programme aims to make reticent male workers better able to recognise and talk about their feelings.

But elevated rates of poor mental health are not limited to construction. Researchers from Cardiff University compared surveys of more than 1,000 merchant seafarers in 2011 and 2016. They found that, though smoking, drinking and unhealthy eating had declined, the percentage that had experienced psychiatric episodes had increased from 28% to 37%.

Similarly, the UK's Road Transport Industry Training Board (RTITB) recently noted that 30% of self-reported work-related illnesses in the transport and logistics sector stemmed from stress, depression or anxiety. (The stigma still associated with admitting to mental health problems makes it likely figures such as these are underestimates.)

If shipping and logistics companies decide to offer more support to distressed workers, Mates in Mind will provide a pathfinding model for them or their sector bodies to follow.

Help for those already suffering is commendable, but is not enough. We should be trying to identify and ameliorate the work-related causes of excessive stress and poor mental health.

The Cardiff researchers noted that recreational facilities, communal activities and internet access would help to reduce the sense of isolation that many merchant mariners report. The RTITB also highlighted isolation, along with long periods of intense concentration and strict delivery deadlines, as a mental health risk factor for drivers of large goods vehicles.

Mental health is a far from simple issue; problems are usually multifactorial and personal factors may contribute as much as work-related ones. Some work stressors are hard to design out of jobs -- long-distance drivers and seafarers will inevitably spend extended periods away from home. But others can be compensated for.

Since what isn't measured isn't managed, the growing recognition of the problem in sectors with higher than average depression and suicide rates is the first step toward action.

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 The first global OSH campaign that aspires to zero harm

Monday 25th September 2017
New figures which begin to quantify this stark truth were revealed at the World Congress on Safety and Health at Work in Singapore (September 2017), a triennial gathering where leading organisations for safety and health connect with ministers, policymakers and some of the world’s largest corporations.
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 Contractor management is one way to raise SMEs' OSH standards

Wednesday 18th October 2017
In the UK, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and trade bodies have tried everything from mobile phone apps to literature distributed at trade counters to channel messages about regulatory requirements and good practice to small contractors, especially those in construction.
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 Government support package aims to cut sickness absence

Thursday 14th September 2017
The new advice, developed jointly by Public Health England (PHE) and health and wellbeing services provider Healthy Working Futures (formerly the Fit For Work Team), aims to help employers promote good health. The guidance includes information on carrying out a workplace health needs assessment (HNA) – a series of questions that staff answer anonymously. Businesses can use the findings to tailor activities to improve health and wellbeing.
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 Under the influence?

Tuesday 17th October 2017
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 Lucy Fell, Highways England

Friday 22nd September 2017
Highways England (HE) is responsible for only 2% of the nation’s road network, but it’s an important 2%. The 7,000 km of roads the government-owned company is tasked with operating, maintaining and improving includes the motorways and major A roads that carry a third of the nation’s traffic and two-thirds of all heavy goods traffic.
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 Proposals for harsher manslaughter sentences

Wednesday 18th October 2017
The European Union’s OSH strategic framework, which runs from 2014 until 2020, prioritises embedding and simplifying existing regulations rather than introducing fresh ones, so the other major source of new UK safety regulation has also slowed to a trickle.Safety and health practitioners may be relieved that they have been left alone – except for the occasional blip such as the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015 – since each new statute makes more work for them.
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 Health and safety regulations at risk under draft law

Monday 13th March 2023
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 ISO 45001 – five years on

Friday 10th March 2023
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 Majority of workers accept alcohol and drug testing, survey finds

Tuesday 15th November 2022
Most workers would comply with a corporate alcohol and drug testing policy, according to the findings of a survey that informs the Dräger UK Safety at Work Report 2022.
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 How employers can stay on top of the use of drugs and alcohol at work

Monday 22nd August 2022
The Covid-19 pandemic is behind the rise in reports of drugs and alcohol use in the workplace – and with the rise of homeworking, the problem is only set to get worse. This video explores what safety professionals can do to keep on top of drug and alcohol use at work.

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 Pandemic pressure: the drugs don't work

Friday 1st July 2022
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 Line managers’ study: behavioural strategies to better support employees with mental ill-health

Tuesday 25th October 2022
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