Centre for Mental Health

Skilled workforce urgently needed to support people with mental health problems into work

8 December 2008

Government needs to take concerted action to build a workforce that can support its ambitious plans to help people with mental health problems to get and keep work, according to a paper published today by Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health and the College of Occupational Therapists.

Vocational Rehabilitation: what is it, who can deliver it and who pays? argues that the UK has a serious shortage of people with the skills they need to offer expert help, both to people who need support to stay in their jobs and to those who want to get jobs. Unless we invest now in people to deliver expert support, the Government's ambition to help millions of people with mental health problems to work will not be achieved.

The paper argues that both taxpayers and employers gain from vocational rehabilitation and that both should pay for it. The Government has acknowledged this in its strategy for health and work, which includes both support for employers to promote mental health at work and for the NHS to do more to keep people in work when they become unwell.

Dr Bob Grove, Sainsbury Centre employment programme director, said: "Last week the Government published Improving Health and Work, with plans for a new Fit for Work service, electronic 'fit notes' and more help for small employers. These are welcome innovations but they need people with the right skills to make a difference.

"The last recession created a 'lost generation' of workers who were written off as incapable of work. We must not let this happen again. The real test of welfare-to-work is whether employers recruit and retain people with disabilities in tough times."

Julia Scott, chief executive of the College of Occupational Therapists, said: "Occupational Therapists are well placed to facilitate those with mental health issues to return to work and to assess the complex needs of those with these problems wishing to remain in work. However, there are not enough Occupational Therapists to respond to the anticipated level of demand and the government needs to invest in training more OTs in order to ensure it has a suitably qualified workforce in place to deliver on the improving Health and Work agenda."