Having chomped my way quickly through Dame Black's magnum opus on the future of workplace health - I have to say it's a pleasure to read such an eminently sensible report with sound conclusions backed up with some very poignant evidence.
It's hard to argue the case against. I'm sure there will be some who may come up with a few operational implementation quibbles but by and large I would have thought that this would merit immediate implementation. Mmmm......
Refer to some comment already on the report.
Is it a little bit too forward-looking requiring some investment? Ah yes. Question: why not just go for it?
The best line in the report is contained in Chapter Nine, 'Individuals have a fundamental personal responsibility for maintaining their own health'.
I'll just read that one again: 'Individuals have a fundamental personal responsibility for maintaining their own health'.
That means the NHS is not there in place of personal responsibility. It's there to assist. It's even simpler - its called personal accountability. It makes no difference if you're employed or self-employed, though this kind of proposal may have some impact on a couple of particular industries (i.e. it forces the issue of self-employment as a means of cost control and the requirement that the fundamental business model has to change).
With self-employment there also needs to be some form of tax incentive to ensure we avoid moral hazard. That means Government has to stop treating the self-employed as economic pariahs.
The report also spells out the responsibilities for employers which should already be a given. 'Fit for work' note is a far better way of perceiving the effects of illness than a 'sicknote'. I'm sure it will also have an effect on those who shall we say, 'take advantage of the current system'. There's plenty to think through in terms of implementation but that's detail......
There is some very interesting data presented and some concerns. I'm a little surprised at the predominance, for example, of mental health illness in education. I know it can be tough teaching youngsters but I would have though that this data leads to an even bigger question - Are we hiring teachers with the resilience to do the job, like in any other role?
I think the respective unions need to spend some time looking at that one, even though, of course, its not the conclusion they would like to draw. There's a fine line between threshold competency and work environment when it comes to doing the job and stress leading to more serious ailment.
The stats suggest 3 things:
- There is something fundamentally wrong with education in schools/universities
- There is a mismatch of requirements in recruitment
- There is a statistical quirk in that people who join as teachers are more susceptible to mental illness
Finding out requires some investigation. Since we are talking education here and further data that is presented in the report showing the link between a lack of education and illness I would have though that this merited some serious attention. I'm not sure that the talk of pay and strikes is perhaps the only focus.
Finance was the other area of note re mental illness. I would expect cases to massively increase as reality hits home in the next couple of years. Just think all that stress in trying to make lots of money is now counterbalanced by the depths of possibly not having a job........
Generally, I shall be interested to see the stats over time as we enter a tough economic climate. There's lots of variables contianed within this data and one shouldn't forget the need for due diligence in understanding the dynamics when it comes to drawing conclusions.
So expect this quite bold, pro-active directive to be finally installed in a watered-down version by about 2020 with limited application and half-thought through financing model which is the usual way we treat such visionary recommendations. (Because, of course, the Olympics are far more important than health and we'll have to find the money from somewhere!!).
Dame Black's proposals deserve better.........
