Good Practice

MINDFUL EMPLOYER^® is researching and collating examples of good practice in relation to the employment of people with mental health issues. This includes work by employers, NHS and other health and social care organisations, learning and work services and others. If you have a contribution you would like to make then please contact us.

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Being a Charter Signatory
South Devon Healthcare NHS Trust is one of Devon's biggest employers with over 3,500 paid staff as well as hundreds of volunteers.  It has a catchment area covering 300 square miles - from South Dartmoor to the length of coastline which stretches from the mouth of the River Exe (Dawlish), past the Teign and Dart estuaries (beyond Dartmouth). Torbay Hospital serves a resident population of approaching 300,000 people, plus about 100,000 visitors at any one time during the summer holiday season. 

The Trust signed the Mindful Employer Charter in 2006 having attended a Mindful Employer event.  As a signatory to the Charter it provided the Trust with an opportunity to give serious thought to how Mental Health issues should be incorporated into its work on Equality & Diversity.  The Charter also recognises the organisations’ need to work towards the key principles. The Trust was keen to promote to potential applicants its Mindful Employer status and as such the Mindful Employer logo is displayed on the Trust’s recruitment website together with a link to the Mindful Employer site.  Being a member of the Charter raises the profile of mental health issues with recruiting managers.  Managers are now advised if a potential candidate has indicated they require positive adjustments to the recruitment process in order to support their application.  Managers are now able to speak with the candidate and ensure these adjustments are in place prior to the interview process.

As part of its work on looking at how mental health issues affect our workforce the Trust was one of forty organisations who worked with the Health & Safety Executive on a stress management project.  The Trust implemented the project within two Divisions, working with ACAS and using their Facilitator Training to train key members of staff.  These staff then led the work within the Divisions including looking at work-life balance, a Stress Management Conference for Day Surgery staff, training courses on personal stress management techniques and facilitated team based working.  In response to the project the Trust also established a Stress Management Group. One of the key principles of being a Mindful Employer is retaining staff that may have experienced discrimination in the past.  As part of its commitment to retaining staff with key skills and experience the Trust approached Remploy.  Remploy is an independent organisation with specialist experience in return to work, retention and role adjustment.   In partnership with Remploy the Trust has successfully retained the key skills and experience of staff through role adjustment or redeployment within the organisation of staff who otherwise would have left on ill health grounds.

Being a Mindful Employer has provided the Trust with an opportunity to practically broaden its equality work whilst continuing to demonstrate its commitment to meeting its legal and statutory equality duties. For further information contact Anna Alexander, Senior HR Manager on 01803 655871

Helping suicidal employees
Following an enquiry received by MINDFUL EMPLOYER, we took soundings on appropriate responses in situations where employees are under so much stress (whether in work or outside) that they are contemplating suicide. The following comments and links are offered for consideration:

Dr Glenn Roberts, Consultant Psychiatrist with Devon Partnership NHS Trust said 'In general, I would have thought that it’s probably inappropriate or unhelpful to try to train up lay people to do accurate risk assessments of suicidal risk and better to have a low threshold for encouraging contact with easy access low stigma services e.g. Samaritans / MIND or other contacts that someone who is distressed can be put in touch with. If employers know they are putting employees under stress and that would risk their mental health there is something to be said for simultaneously appointing investigating officers and asking of the individual if they have a confidant or supporter or would like to suggest someone who could offer mentoring to provide support through a distressing process – and that person needs to also be looked after by the organisation asking them to fulfil this role - for example I’ve recently been asked to provide this for a medical colleague who is in difficulties – as an extension of our mentorship scheme. I’m not aware of any research or established system.‘

Some relevant web links: www.mind.org.uk/Information/Factsheets/Suicide/ and www.netdoctor.co.uk/menshealth/facts/depression

Staff Surgeries
In 2007, Gloucestershire Partnership Foundation NHS Trust took a pro-active response to feedback from staff and union representatives that communication and staff involvement needed to be reviewed and improved. Union representatives were keen to support a range of initiatives which included as a first step, addressing pay concerns through the concept of a ‘Staff Surgery’. The concept of ‘Staff Surgeries’ was extended to encompass issues which anecdotally appeared to causing concern or were ‘topical’. These have been running bi-monthly and are supported by the Trust and union representatives and will continue in 2008. Issues addressed include balancing work and carer responsibilities (targeted in advance of Carers Rights Day), the range of flexible working options available and aspects of the national terms and conditions and how this applied to individuals. During 2008 the Trust will endeavour to evaluate the effectiveness of offering Staff Surgeries. For more information contact Carol Sparks, Deputy HR Director

Charter signatory awarded Gold Standard
In 2007, Plymouth Teaching Primary Care Trust was awarded the Employers Forum on Disability Gold Standard, coming first in the NHS Sector and eighth overall against all other employers in the UK who took part in the ‘Benchmark for Action’. Sue Behenna, Human Resources Manager says “The Gold Standard is not given out lightly and is a tremendous achievement for the PCT. The Disability Standard is the largest management tool in the world that enables organisations to benchmark its performance on disability and put in place action plans that deliver real organisational improvements.” There are both public and private sector versions of the Disability Standard and the entire process is cost-effective and easy to complete. 
The PCT has retained the Disability Symbol (Two Ticks) since 1996 and in 2005 became a MINDFUL EMPLOYER Charter signatory and this has helped the Trust to improve its disability confidence. The Employer’s Conference on Disability were particularly impressed by the innovative work that the Trust had done to set up a Coffee Shop in its new Local Care Centre run by users of the Trust’s Mental Health Services.  An idea born at a Workways/SWEMPNET Conference in 2005. The conference proved to be an excellent vehicle for sharing ideas and developing new ones and the idea for staffing the Coffee Shop with service users and Routeways grew out of a conversation between Sue and Sharon Claridge, Vocational Services Manager, also of the PCT.
Sue Behenna and Sharon Claridge can be contacted on 01752 272397 and 01752 300237 respectively for further information.

All the documents shown below are in pdf format (opens with Adobe Reader). Click on the bold text to download or to link to website. If for any reason you have difficulty accessing or reading these documents then please contact us.