Policy review

Dame Carol Black's Review of the health of Britain's working-age population, Working for a Healthier Tomorrow (May 2008), highlighted:

• the business case for supporting the wellbeing of employees
• mental ill health as a major cause of sickness absence and worklessness due to ill health
• The need to promote wellbeing at work and good work which promotes health, and corresponding gains in productivity and profitability
• the need to integrate specialist mental health provision into employment support programmes 

A part of the response to the review was the development of a UK Mental Health and Employment Strategy. 

On 7 December, 2009 the UK Government launched Working our way to better mental health: a framework for action, the first ever national mental health and employment strategy.

The framework for action is designed to:

• Improve well-being at work for everyone, and

• Deliver significantly better employment results for people with mental health conditions, supporting them into work, helping them to stay in work and assisting them to return to work more quickly after sickness absences.

A priority for the Scottish Government is to tackle and address health and income inequalities and to ensure that the mental health and wellbeing of Scotland’s people flourishes.  The strategy and action around this Mental Health Improvement work is held within Towards a Mentally Flourishing Scotland 2009 -2011 and links to employability.