mental health
Thanks to Covid and the anxiety-inducing financial crisis, the nation's wellness has suffered - but investment in care can help
The country's mental health crisis has been steadily rising over the past two decades, but the past three years have seen a rapid escalation of the problem

Britain's workforce is unwell. Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show an estimated 185.6 million working days were lost because of sickness or injury in 2022.

And the number of people off work due to long-term sickness has risen to another all-time high, at 2.5 million, over the three months to February this year. The sickness absence rate for those with long-term health conditions is at its highest point since 2008, the figures also show, at 4.9 per cent.


Comment: The year 2008 is notable because that was the wake of the financial collapse of 2007/8, with the accompanying job losses and merciless cuts to public spending and government programs.


Earlier this week, an employment tribunal in Berkshire dismissed one extreme case: Ian Clifford, a senior IT worker on sick leave since 2008, had tried to sue IBM for discrimination because he hadn't been given a pay rise in the 15 years he has been unable to work.

Clifford, 50, was initially signed off work on mental health grounds and was later diagnosed with stage four leukaemia, in 2012, and has been unable to work since. His story may be unusual but elements of it are not unusual.

The country's mental health crisis has been steadily rising over the past two decades, but the past three years have seen a rapid escalation of the problem.

mental health
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In the year before the pandemic, just 11 per cent of young adults and 10 per cent of middle-aged people showed signs of depressive symptoms, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Two years later this had jumped to 23 per cent and 15 per cent alike.

By the end of the 2022, just a third of the people said they had very low levels of anxiety - a proportion not seen since the height of the pandemic or the worst months of the Great Recession.

As with any health crisis, the impacts have very quickly trickled into the economy, creating an exodus of employees from the workforce. At the end of 2019, around 555,000 people were economically inactive to long-term mental health problems. Less than three years later, this number had risen by 80,000 - equivalent to almost one in 70 working-age adults.


Comment: In December 2021, and onwards, a similar issue of 'economically inactive' individuals was being reported over in the US: US jobless claims still sunk at 52-year low with just 206,000 new claims, labour participation at record lows


mental health
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Almost all industries have been impacted by the change.

In the retail sector, an additional 15,300 people are no longer working due to mental health problems compared with 2017, figures from the Labour Force Survey shows.

This means that around 50,000 people who previously worked in the sector no longer do, a figure which has even more urgency when put in the context of a workforce with 142,000 vacancies nationwide. Similar increases have been seen across the transport, hospitality and business sectors. Putting a figure on quite how much this costs the economy is difficult, but a few organisations have given it a shot.

mental health
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Most recently, accountancy firm Deloitte estimated that the startling rise in staff turnover and absences since the start of the pandemic had driven up the cost to employers from mental health by 25 per cent. In the 2020-21 financial year, they estimated that businesses were losing ยฃ56 billion a year compared with ยฃ45 billion in 2019.

Of the employees who left or were planning to, almost two-thirds told the survey it was due to problems with mental health.

The issue is exacerbated by the fact the public sector, at a time of severe backlogs, is most acutely affected by mental health problems.

Sickness absences are 50 per cent higher amongst public sector workers and are twice as likely to be linked to mental health problems, figures for the Office for National Statistics show.

The health service is symbolic of the issue. In November 2022, one in 75 working days was lost amongst nurses due to stress or psychological problems, up from over one in 100 in 2015.

For ambulance staff, the figure increases to one in 60 days.

mental health
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Where five years ago, just 18 per cent of former health and social care workers cited mental health as the illness forcing them into economic inactivity, today the figure is 28 per cent.

That's equivalent to 20,000 additional people out of the workplace due to their mental health.

At the heart of this is a key public service still reeling from the pressures of Covid against the backdrop of decreasing real wages and staffing shortages.


Comment: Not forgetting vaccine mandates for certain healthcare workers, with coercion for others, in addition to soaring inflation and the energy cost crisis.


Outside of hospitals, pressures appear to be impacting a variety of public services.

Last year, civil servant "mental health days" increased by 38 per cent. Across policing, the Police Federation reported a 57 per cent increase in absences due to stress, depression or PTSD. Surveys across teaching show similar growth across the past few years.

With a growing proportion of the people out of work due to mental health, the welfare bill will become increasingly expensive.

Nationally, the number of people claiming welfare benefits for mental health reasons has eclipsed those for more physical ailments.

In October 2021, 310,00 people were eligible for the main mental health benefit, with the most serious cases eligible for upwards of ยฃ3,700 a year. This was up from just 205,000 before the pandemic.


Comment: So following the government backed contrived coronavirus crisis and their enforced lockdowns, over 100,000 more people were unable to work due to mental health reasons.


mental health
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Then there are the increased services needed to treat people or the costs incurred by unpaid carers who support family and loved ones.

In the most comprehensive study of its kind, the London School of Economics produced a number combining all these factors, including lost economic productivity.

Each year, it conservatively put the number at ยฃ117 billion - a figure greater than the education, policing, prisons and foreign development budget combined.

What can be done?

Almost any public health emergency is best dealt with pre-emptively.

In this case, that likely means the continued growth of the country's free-to-use mental health services.

Last year, over 1.2 million people accessed the NHS's talking therapies, for example, up from just 400,000 a decade ago. And the NHS has committed to increasing mental health funding at the same rate as that for physical ailments.

But Deloitte points out that, for businesses' own posterity, much of the work will need to be done at a hyperlocal level.

The most important finding? For every pound invested in every pound of proactive mental health support, a company can make five pounds on that investment.

For a country struggling with the fallout from Covid and anxiety-inducing financial crisis, this might be a good place to start.