Agenda item

The Board considered the report of the Director of Public Health that provided an update on the development and implementation of the ‘Framework for good workforce mental health in County Durham businesses’ and its associated services (for copy of report, see file of minutes).

The Director of Public Health introduced the item before handing over to the Public Health Advanced Practitioner who was in attendance to present the report.

The Board had been provided with a copy of the framework document as part of the agenda.

The Board were informed that small and medium sized businesses and voluntary and community organisations were less likely to provide access to good quality mental health training and support for owners and employees.

The framework had been developed in conjunction with local business specialists and contained a set of key actions that aimed to tackle workplace mental health stigma and discrimination to improve mental health awareness and promote the importance of good workforce mental health.

An Employee Assistance Programme and Mental Heath Training Hub had been commissioned that could be accessed without charge and had been funded for two years and were both fully operational.

The framework had been reviewed and updated to include matters relating to COVID-19.

The framework was based on solid evidence and would be circulated to businesses across the area.

As Mental Health Champion the Chair fully supported the work that had been undertaken. The Board recognised that COVID-19 had presented many challenges for local businesses and would like to commend the work that had been undertaken to prioritise mental health of the workforce.

Councillor Gunn supported the Chair and commented that the impacts and effects upon people who were in employment had been outlined and described very well in the framework. One of the effects was the impact of mental health upon families and upon children and these knock-on effects was not just one person or one company or business, it was to do with a whole range of things that occurred. If affecting families, it was affecting children and the way children go to school and learn. Councillor Gunn was aware of small business impact and how businesses had struggled, and some were still struggling to keep afloat and welcomed the framework.

The Public Health Advanced Practitioner commented that the framework was clear on isolation and that no one operates in isolation in their personal or professional lives or in education, how people were feeling would affect everything surrounding them.

The Director of Public Health echoed Councillor Gunn’s points and commented that it was fantastic seeing the framework come to fruition and a lot of work had been done in the background and thanked colleagues for a fantastic piece of work that they should be proud of for the County.

S Caddell commented that this was an excellent initiative and very well supported by the evidence and asked for details of the monitoring that would take place.

The Public Health Advanced Practitioner responded that the feedback will be monitored from local businesses and they would continue to engage and do a lot of work through Business Durham. For those clients who did not engage regularly with Business Durham but with the North East Chamber of Commerce or Federation of Small Businesses they also had a wealth of networks who operated across County Durham.

Over the last eighteen months they had created some meaningful collaborations with these organisations who welcomed Public Health into their meetings, so they could gather qualitative feedback from them.

A number of focus group were established to get opinions of small organisations and he would like to establish another set of focus groups, following implementation of the framework to establish if they had seen the document and any impact.

In terms of numbers they would look at how many people were engaging and set a base line in terms of data from the contract monitoring meetings and measure the number of programmes taken up and the potential impact of these engagements with these programmes going forward.

Resolved: That the contents and the objectives of the framework be noted.