Kent Safety Solutions is a company that has been working since 2014 to deliver more safety management, training, environment and quality services. The company offers a range of management systems which include health and safety, IS09001 and ISO14001 as well as providing guidance and advice on the latest regulations in this area which include CDM 2015.
The leader in safety management and training have suggested that most employers do not recognise the importance of mental health as part of their health and safety policies. Employers have been warned by Kent Safety Solutions to take in to consideration the impact of mental health in their health and safety procedures. It is thought that mental health is not covered in the same way, despite a significant number of working days being lost because of stress or other mental health related problems.
Statistics that have come from the Health and Safety Executive suggests that there were approximately 12 million working days lost because of stress, depression and anxiety over the course of 2015/16. It is a legal requirement that organisations have health and safety procedures in place, although it is thought that employers mainly focus on the safety aspect of implementing these policies and while carrying out risk assessments. Although safety controls are quite straightforward to implement, mental health is more difficult to take in to consideration while carrying out risk assessment because of the possible difficulties of pre-existing health conditions as well as less evident risks and the potential for longer term consequences.
In particular, stress is left out of the health and safety process. This is concerning with situations in many different industries where there are a number of credit-crunch roles not being filled and one person taking on an increase workload for a long period of time. This happens to be the case in the construction industry, and improving the health and safety to include mental health more thoroughly, the number of cases of work-related stress leading to absence could be reduced.
