Mental Health and Unemployment — House of Commons, 2015-02-24
Topic: Health
Mark James Harper (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not have a specific answer that I can give the hon. Gentleman immediately, but I will take that point away and look at it further. I listened carefully when he was setting it out for the House and there were some positive aspects to that approach About a third of NHS mental health trusts in England are using individual placement and support. The Department of Health is grant funding the Centre for Mental Health to extend IPS further, and my Department and the Department of Health are working with the Centre for Mental Health to try IPS with schizophrenia. From his expression, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam appears to be familiar with that programme. One of the aims is to encourage at a local level my Department and Jobcentre Plus to work closely with the health service, and there are examples of such close working The fit for work service was referred to by several Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne, who said that the longer people were out of work, the less chance there was of return. The fit for work service, to which the shadow Minister also referred, which is obviously at a relatively early stage, is about helping employers and employees manage the sickness absence programme I was tempted to advertise another service that we offer earlier, but I resisted. When my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam opened his speech with the story of Anne-Marie, I thought that it was a good example of where she and her employer would have benefited from the mental health support service, which is part of Access to Work, which is clearly not as well known as it ought to be. As he said, it has a job retention rate of around 92%. It assesses an individual’s need to identify strategies that they can use to cope with their mental health problem, looks at a personalised support plan, either for returning to or remaining in work, and gives employers advice. That is important, particularly for small employers that do not have the capacity to have occupational health support in place As it happens, tomorrow I will be speaking at a disability confident mental health focus event, which is being supported by Mind, Remploy and the Business Disability Forum, and hosted by Royal Mail, specifically to raise awareness about the mental health support service. A significant number of employers are coming, and I have named several employers, including Royal Mail, who are committed to this Leadership has been referred to, and I attended an event with a KPMG senior partner—I hope it is in order to mention the company given that I used to work for it, although it was a long time ago—who has been open about his own mental health problem. It was heartening that he referred to the fact that the senior management of that organisation had created an environment in the business where, as a senior member of the management team, he felt comfortable with being open about his mental health problem. I know from talking to other members of staff that the fact that he has been able to do that and has been well supported by that employer has had a powerful effect on encouraging others in that environment to be open about their mental health problems. So there are other employers who recognise that. The right hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Sir Andrew Stunell) is not in his place, but he referred to a Disability Confident event that he has run. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam is also interested in this area, and I hosted a Disability Confident event in my own constituency a couple of weeks ago. I have written to all right hon. and hon. Members to encourage them to do the same in their constituencies, partly to engage with those small and medium-sized employers that might otherwise be unfamiliar with the campaign My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam wrote an article for PoliticsHome today entitled, "I don’t like Mondays—how work can affect mental health". My only criticism of the piece is that he urged UK plc to take action. I know what he meant, but it is worth remembering that we are also talking about UK Ltd, because half the work force is employed by small and medium-sized enterprises, and they do not always have the human resources support or access to services that larger businesses have My hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne referred to BT. The head of occupational health and well-being there, Dr Paul Litchfield, has produced two independent reports for the Government. I waited until he had concluded that work, and therefore had only one hat on, before visiting BT, where I had a very positive experience. The hon. Member for North Durham spoke very positively about its programme. He is right that BT puts a lot of effort into supporting employees with mental health problems, and not only because it is the right thing to do, but because it is absolutely in its business interest. It has a very high staff retention rate. It keeps almost everybody who develops a mental health problem at work, and the vast majority in their existing roles, although sometimes they have to change role. I heard four individuals give powerful testimonials about the support they had received from the company. I thought that it was incredibly positive that they felt so open in discussing some quite difficult issues they had had in front of their management chain. They clearly work in a very positive environment I will mention universal credit before drawing my remarks to a conclusion, because the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston would think it remiss of me not to do so. I do not pretend that universal credit solves every problem on the planet, but I think that there are two areas where it is very positive for mental health. The first is the way that it has been set up, because it is about getting work coaches to engage with people earlier, looking at what support they need. If someone falls out of work and approaches the jobcentre—I think this is the thrust of the point made by the hon. Member for North Durham—we want the support to be delivered earlier in the process, rather than later. Universal credit has been set up in such a way that it is about having that conversation, looking at what someone can do and delivering support earlier, which I think will help. It is not the only solution, but I think that it will make things better.