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A third of highways sector not tackling mental ill health, report reveals Results from the first industry benchmarking exercise against the Thriving at Work Report standards have found that less than two-thirds of businesses in the highways sector are routinely monitoring their workforce’s mental health and wellbeing. process; and ensure provision of tailored in-house mental health support and signposting to clinical help.
31% of respondents do not have a mental health strategy
awareness among employees; encourage open conversations about mental health and available support; provide good working conditions and ensure employees have a healthy work-life balance; promote effective people
management through line managers and supervisors and monitor employee mental health and wellbeing; increase transparency and accountability through internal and external reporting; demonstrate accountability; improve the disclosure
£500,000 fine follows death of care home resident Derbyshire County Council has appeared in court after a pensioner died following multiple falls. Audrey Allen, 80, died in hospital a month after repeatedly falling at the Grange Care Home in Eckington in March 2016. At Chesterfield Magistrates’ Court, Derbyshire County Council admitted failing to provide safe care and treatment. Ms Allen, a former nurse, fell while in a communal area at the home and the staff moved her to her bed. Though she reported pain in her left side, no medical advice was sought. She had sustained rib fractures, which lacerated
one of her lungs, leading to a haemorrhage. No assessment of the pensioner’s needs had been carried out by staff and no measures had been put in place to protect her, despite her being a high-risk resident. There was also a shortage of senior staff due to restructuring by the council. Judge Jonathan Taaffe said the fine would have been higher had the authority not entered an early guilty plea, and questioned how it could have been allowed to happen at a care
The survey also found that 31% of respondents do not have a mental health strategy in place, while almost a fifth admitted to not providing employees with good working conditions to ensure they have a healthy work-life balance. A third of participants said their organisation does not have a health and wellbeing lead at board or senior leadership level. Collectively the highways sector, through principal and tertiary contractors, employs almost a quarter of a million people - most of whom are men. Statistically, one-in-four men will suffer some form of mental illness in their lives. To read the full story: bit.ly/2PcFtZY
home rated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) as ‘good’. The prosecution is the first the CQC has brought against a local authority since it was given powers to prosecute health and social care providers for failing to provide safe care and treatment back in 2015. A spokesperson for the council said it had reviewed and revised its falls policy.
Audrey Allen repeatedly fell at the care home
Images: iStock/Family photo
The Thriving at Work Mental Health Survey Report, published last month by Safer Highways, has revealed that just five of the 100 organisations that have completed its benchmarking exercise since the survey’s launch in June 2019 are working towards meeting any of the ten standards set out in the Thriving at Work Report. Only four are meeting one. The independent review, published in 2017 and led by Lord Dennis Stevenson and Paul Farmer, chair of the National Health Service (NHS) Mental Health Taskforce, found that poor mental health costs employers up to £42bn a year with an annual cost to the UK economy of £99bn. The review set out a framework for all UK employers, regardless of their size or industry, to improve workplace mental health. These ‘core standards’ are: implement a mental health at work plan; develop mental health
4 JANUARY 2020
4-7 News_January 2020_IOSH 4
18/12/2019 10:37