MP starts a trend to support retailers

Dr Lisa Cameron hosted an industry-first in the House of Commons to improve mentalhealth wellbeing among retail workers.

Coinciding with World Mental Health Day, John Lewis Partnership and six other retailers joined together to launch a new online training guide designed to help the mental health and wellbeing of the UK’s 2.9 million retail workers.

Funded by the John Lewis

Partnership, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, ASOS, the Co-op, M&S and Next and developed with the expertise of Samaritans, Wellbeing in Retail aims to help workers look after their own mental health, give advice on how to support others who may be struggling and signposts where to go for extra help.

Joint research from the John Lewis Partnership, M&S, the Co-op and Next found that over 50 per cent of the 2000 retail workers questioned could not recognise the signs of someone needing emotional support and around 25 per cent would not feel confident approaching an upset colleague.

SNP MP Dr Lisa Cameron, Shadow Mental Health Spokesperson, hosted the John Lewis Flagship Partnership Event in the House of Commons where MPs and visitors met the Samaritans team, spoke to retail workers and tried the online tool for themselves.

She said:“It is my utmost priority to support improvement in wellbeing for workers across the UK and I would like to thank the John Lewis Partnership for the significant steps that they are taking to highlight awareness and to provide an important resource for staff, improving their mental health.

“It is a pivotal achievement and I was pleased to host this event in Parliament to highlight how crucial this issue is.”