GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

Conference believes good mental health should be a priority for every

workplace and all workers who deal with mental health in their day to day

should be trained to spot signs of mental health issues and understand how to

respond appropriately. Conference also believes employers have crucial role

to play in tackling poor mental health at work, and that the Government should

encourage and support employers more effectively.

Conference calls on the GFTU to:

• Encourage the GFTU to support union campaigns to improve mental

health provision, training and attitudes in workplaces.

• Call on the Health and Safety Executive to conduct mental health risk

assessments in workplaces across the country to raise employer

awareness of their duty to assess and manage mental health at work.

• Call on employers to ensure their workplaces are supportive

environments by training their employees in Mental Health First Aid,

offering flexible working and time off, and by implementing inclusive

employment and recruitment policies.

• Lead a national campaign calling for significant new funding for mental

health services and, in particular, crisis care services, whether in the

community or in our health and prison system.

She said: Conference, Maz Jackson, Community, moving Motion 4 on mental

health at work. For many of us work is a major part of our lives. It is where we

spend the majority of our time, where we get our income and often where we

make our friends. It is inevitably a setting where we experience a problems.

For some of us these can be mental health problems. Conference, more

people are in work with mental health conditions than ever before and that

across all workplaces and all ages, but without the necessary help and support

many of us workers are struggling and as a consequence are off sick and less

productive and leaving work. In any one year over one in four in the general

population and one in six workers are likely to be suffering from a mental health

condition. With over 31 million people in work in the UK, this is the equivalent

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