Dear colleague,
COVID-19 has affected all our lives and our livelihoods in
profound ways over the last year. The nation has come
together to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe, but
there has been a cost. The virus itself, and the necessary
measures to contain its spread, have triggered feelings of
worry, distress, or loneliness for many of us. In response
to these challenges, you may have seen that the government
has recently published our COVID-19 Mental
Health and Wellbeing Recovery Action Plan. This sets
out our ambitious, cross-government approach to promoting
positive mental health and supporting people living with
mental illness to recover and live well.
I care greatly about the health of our businesses, and the
impact of the past year on the wellbeing of businesses and
individuals; from workers and employees to business leaders
and those running their own companies. Through my ongoing
engagement with businesses and representative
organisations, I have been acutely aware of the impact on
those facing financial insecurity, for example. This is of
particular concern as we know there is a clear and
well-established relationship between financial insecurity
and poor mental health.
We also know more broadly that poor mental health costs
employers between £33 billion and £42 billion a year, and
the UK economy between £74 billion and £99 billion per
year. Supporting mental health in the workplace has never
been more important, and I fully recognise and value the
role that employers play when they take positive action to
provide workplace mental health and wellbeing support to
their staff.
I wanted to therefore ask for your support. I know many of
you have specific tools and programmes in place to promote
positive mental health and support individuals, and I would
encourage you to take this opportunity to promote this to
your membership.
For those organisations that do not have their own
resources, we would encourage you to promote some of the
existing resources available, such as those being
signposted through GOV.UK. These include:
Thank you for your efforts so far on this important issue.
Through promoting these resources and guidance for
businesses and employers, as well as your own resources, we
can improve workplace support, support those individuals
who need it, and better tackle the impacts of mental
ill-health moving forward.
Yours sincerely,
Minister for Small Business, Consumers and Labour
Markets
Minister for London
