Recent events are making some of us uneasy about the government's appetite to put energy and funding behind the recommendations in Dame Carol Black's report for reform of occupational health. And that's leaving aside the fact that Gordon Brown and his cabinet are likely to be putting more effort into stopping the government from imploding than on reforming sick notes or launching fit for work teams.
This week we are all reeling from the latest chapter of the financial crisis with 5,000 jobs likely to go at Lehman Brothers and tens of thousands threatened elsewhere in that sector. We can only hope that business leaders do not take the attitude that health and work are too much of a luxury when all hands are needed on deck to try and stop the ship going down. The point is though that at times of change and uncertainty such as these mental health at work should be rising up managers' agendas, not dropping off. If the new word for managing 'stress' is 'resilience' then we are going to need a lot of resilience over the next few months to see us through the uncertain and threatening times ahead. .
As for the government's response to Dame Carol Black's recommendations, I bumped into her last week and the smart money is on early November for an announcement.