Mental health for all

PAUL STEPHEN discovers how Network Rail has strengthened the mental health and wellbeing support it offers to employees in response to the Coronavirus pandemic

One of the areas where feedback was particularly strong was around our parental buddies’ scheme. Loraine Martins, Director of Diversity and Inclusion, Network Rail

First observed on October 10 1992, World Mental Health Day has become a firm fixture in the calendar for helping raise mental health awareness.

Recognised by the World Health Organisation on October 10 every year, WMHD is also an opportunity for people to show their support for the invaluable work done by charities and organisations in this area.

Although mental health problems can affect anybody, anywhere, and on any day of the year, October 10 2020 was perhaps the most important WMHD to date. That’s because with mental health problems on the rise and already known to affect one in four of us in any given year, the past few months have been especially tough.

As the world continues to grapple with the Coronavirus pandemic, the mental health and wellbeing of millions of people has been shaken by fear and uncertainty. The lockdown of society and the continued need for social distancing has led to widespread emotional distress and a significant increase in feelings of anxiety, depression, loneliness and isolation.

Given the sheer scale of the damage that has been inflicted by the pandemic on mental health, the theme of this year’s WMHD was ‘mental health for all’ and improving access to much-needed support services.

In accordance with this theme, RAIL asked the rail sector’s largest employer - Network

Rail - for an overview on how it has increased the level of mental health support it provides to its 40,000+ staff, and how access to bespoke services has been enhanced.

“Ever since Control Period 5 [April 2014March 2019], we have had a comprehensive mental health and wellbeing programme which has a steering group to ensure we meet our milestones and requirements,” says NR’s chief medical officer Dr Richard Peters.

“The programme looks at breaking stigma in the workplace and making sure we have the necessary campaigns, communications and support services in place.

“Last year, our Chief Executive Andrew Haines reaffirmed the organisation’s commitment to the Time to Change pledge to promote positive mental wellbeing and remove stigma in the workplace.

“NR’s Medical Standards have also been updated, to improve the management of health risks in the workplace and to give line managers the training they need to have the necessary tools to manage people’s mental health and wellbeing, and to signpost those people more effectively to appropriate help and support.”

Peters adds: “We’ve also implemented a new mental health and wellbeing discussion tool to allow employees to have a structured conversation with their line managers. This is designed to help understand how work and home life might be having an impact on someone’s work, and to find useful tools and strategies to help decrease any potential causes of work-related stress.

“Last but not least, we have also piloted the concept of mental wellbeing ambassadors to aid peer-to-peer support and are now looking at how to roll that out across the entire business.”

Underpinning the increased support that NR has provided since the outbreak of Coronavirus are the results of an employee survey carried out in June.

This survey gauged the attitudes of NR’s workforce as they continue to adapt to significant changes to their established routines, including increased working from home.

It asked employees how well supported by NR they felt in these uncertain and worrying times, but also for feedback on the usefulness and accessibility of individual support mechanisms.

These include NR’s free-to-use confidential counselling and information Employee Assistance Programme (known as Validium), plus the NHS-approved SilverCloud app that offers online behavioural help programmes to address issues including anxiety and depression.

Director of Diversity and Inclusion

Loraine Martins explains: “The survey was a consequence of us being very transparent, open and honest about how we have been handling the requests we were getting for assistance and our ability to guide people to the right resources.

“The survey was really helpful, because it reinforced the things that we were doing right and also identified things that we could amplify. One of the areas where feedback was particularly strong was around our parental buddies’ scheme, which was set up so that people could share their experiences and tips for balancing working from home and being educators to their children.

“We found that another useful resource for people was the mental wellbeing ambassadors who have volunteered to talk to anyone feeling isolated, lonely or in need of someone to interact with, because we appreciate that not everyone working from home has familial ties or people around them.”

She adds: “For some people, working from home can be very positive. But for others who thrive on social contacts in our office buildings, we know that it can have a negative impact. Our employee survey highlights that people do feel that NR is supporting them, but that our employees also have different wants and needs that we need to respond to.”

Despite the positive survey results, Peters says there’s no room for NR to be complacent, given the resurgence of Coronavirus cases in all areas of the country. The anxiety this creates is likely to be compounded by the natural effect that the seasonal change from summer to winter is known to have on people’s moods.

Other non-COVID-19 health effects from the pandemic are also predicted to rise, which could create a further downward force on mental health and wellbeing and potentially place increased demand on the support infrastructure that NR has put in place.

Peters explains: “From a wider health perspective, we’ve seen less reported sickness [since March] and the utilisation of our employee support systems programme has been fairly constant. But I’m fearful that we’ll have a rebound effect, as we know that winter blues and a drop of vitamin D levels as days become shorter can change things.

“We are conscious that the honeymoon

Everybody ought to enjoy their work and not feel that their life is having a negative impact on their work or vice versa.

Dr Richard Peters,

Chief Medical Officer, Network Rail

period of people working from home is probably going to get more difficult as people balance families, schools, local lockdowns and all the other illnesses floating around.

“We also know that people are putting off seeing a doctor because they don’t want to expose themselves to potential COVID-19, so we need to be aware that while it has been quite positive in the initial stages, I feel it might turn the other way with people working from home for months on end and their lives changing completely.

“I expect to see increased reporting of things such as migraine-related absences and muscular-skeletal problems from increased homeworking, which is why it is so important that people are using all of the physical and mental health services we have available.”

Looking ahead, Peters is also hoping for improvements to sickness reporting. He says that there is still a significant amount of underreporting of mental health problems, among trackside workers in particular.

A further challenge he has identified is to successfully develop a robust system of monitoring how many times line managers are having ‘touchpoints’ with employees to discuss mental health issues, without breaching any confidentiality or data protection requirements.

He concludes: “It’s very important that we track perceived work-related mental health issues because I want people to be happy to work for NR. Everybody ought to enjoy their work and not feel that their life is having a negative impact on their work or vice-versa.”