More than one million fit notes for mental and behavioural disorders were issued by the NHS last year, according to new analysis.
The research by employment law firm GQ|Littler found more than 10 million fit notes were distributed in total, with more than 4.5 million people (42%) being signed off for more than a month.
Of the more than one million mental health fit notes issued, more than 77% were for stress-related conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), it said.
The conclusions come as Britain goes to the polls this Thursday (4 July), with Labour widely predicted to win a landslide. The party in its manifesto has pledged to put in place new ‘local plans for work’ designed to help more people with health conditions and disabilities into work, and to reform statutory sick pay.
GQ|Littler argued there could be a range of factors behind the large number of mental health fit notes.
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These included an increased scope of PTSD diagnoses, now covering a wider range of causes. There could also be increased awareness of the importance of mental health by employers and employees alike, as well as decreased stigma surrounding mental health.
The rise could also be down to an increase in the diagnosis of mental health conditions and neurodiversity-related conditions, it said.
However, the fact so many fit notes were issued for more than a month’s absence suggested that there is a continued fallout from the pandemic, with long Covid potentially accounting for the rise in longer-term absence.
Sophie Vanhegan, partner at GQ|Littler, said: “We are now seeing PTSD being diagnosed following a much wider range of triggers such as workplace bullying, litigious divorces and after a difficult childbirth.
“Many employers are shifting their cultures and workplace dynamics to encourage greater awareness and support of mental health issues in the workplace and must continue to do so to try to minimise high incidences of long-term staff absence for mental health issues and to avoid disputes with employees.
“Many employers are shifting their cultures and workplace dynamics to encourage greater awareness and support of mental health issues in the workplace and must continue to do so to try to minimise high incidences of long-term staff absence for mental health issues and to avoid disputes with employees,” Vanhegan added.
Separately, NHS staff are taking more time off for mental ill health, analysis of NHS trust absence data has concluded.
Median absences for mental health leave had increased by an estimated 68% over the past five years, according to digital PR agency Reboot Online.
It analysed more than 1.7 million absence records for 500,000 NHS staff after submitting a freedom of information request to every NHS trust across the UK for information surrounding sick leave, reasons and cost.
Out of 229 trusts, 42 responded with the requested data, providing a sum of more than 1,700,000 absence records for the 512,000 NHS staffers. The trusts were geographically distributed across the UK, so act as a representative sample of the NHS as a whole, it argued.
The estimated median time off for NHS full-time-equivalent staff taking sick leave was 19.1 days a year. The median absence for NHS FTE staff taking sick leave for their mental health was at least 14 days for the past five years.
The cost of mental health absences was an estimated £2m per NHS trust, with Reboot Online estimating that, as a result, the NHS is losing £2.1bn a year to staff illnesses. Nearly a quarter of all absences (24%) for NHS employees were because of mental health problems, it added.
Finally, a white paper by healthcare technology firm EQL has concluded that too many workplace organisational wellbeing programmes are adhoc and lacking in strategy and, critically, do not encompass musculoskeletal disorders.
The conclusions, from a series of focus groups run by the organisation, found 40% of participants had no wellbeing budget at all. Of the ones that did, musculoskeletal health formed part of the overall wellbeing budget but there was no specific allocation set aside.
In terms of priorities within an overall wellbeing strategy, mental health was number one, it found, with musculoskeletal health nevertheless in the top five of half the participants.
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