Mental health epidemic just keeps on growing in 2023

Mental health epidemic just keeps on growing in 2023

Figures from the Health & Safety Executive’s research among 27,000 UK households point to increasing rates of self-reported and work-related stress, depression and anxiety — the most common cause of work-related ill-health.

875,000 workers were reported to have suffered from the conditions in 2022/23 — a higher rate than in the same research in 2018/2019, before the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. 338,000 of those were suffering from a new case of stress, depression or anxiety. The HSE has said that mental ill-health led to 17.1 million lost working days in the past year.

Younger generations struggle

In another new and related study, the Health Foundation found that the past 10 years have seen a 58% increase in the number of employees with a ‘work-limiting’ health condition (from 2.4 million people in 2013 to 3.7 million, or 12% of the working population, in 2023. The biggest growth has come from younger workers in the 16-34 age group, where numbers have doubled from 5.3% reporting a work-limiting condition to 10.4%.

Significantly, mental health conditions have been the biggest driver in the change. The proportion of younger people with mental wellbeing concerns has grown from just 1% to 3.8%.

Designed for life?

EAPA UK chair, Karl Bennett said: “With the return to more normal ways of working after the additional shocks and stresses of the Covid-19 period, there should have been a ‘halo’ effect. A collective sigh of relief, renewed enthusiasm for work and work routines. Instead levels of reported mental ill-health cases keep on rising.

“HR need to look at the basics. There’s no doubt that work has changed in the wake of the pandemic: more remote an hybrid working, fewer social activities, more pressure on returning to high levels of performance and productivity. Combined, of course, with worries around the more uncertain world we live in.

“That means paying attention to employee experience and making sure there is a balance, that roles are designed for real lives, with reasonable demands and targets, routines include plenty of opportunities for social interaction, where there is always a sense of control and belonging. “This needs to be backed up with real support for wellbeing as part of the culture — particularly when it comes to early recognition and prevention around stress, anxiety and depression.”