Thousands of people with mental health problems will get extra support managing their condition to remain in the workplace, Jim Knight, Minister of State for Employment and Welfare Reform announced today.
Jim Knight, Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform, said:
Further radical measures introduced by the Government include:
- Our first ever National Strategy for Mental Health and Employment, for publication in the autumn. The strategy will include expectations of employers, healthcare professionals, organisations and individuals in improving well-being in the workplace.
- Ministers have also asked mental health expert Dr Rachel Perkins and Paul Farmer Chief Executive of Mind how we can better help people with mental health problems back to work.
- A new network of dedicated mental health experts across Jobcentre Plus will work together with colleagues in the health system to coordinate support for people who have mental health conditions.
- A consultation on Right to Control, which will give disabled people, including those with mental health problems, greater choice and control over how public money is spent to meet their individual needs and ambitions.
- Doubling the Access to Work fund, from £69m to £138m over the next five years - providing practical advice and financial support to disabled people and their employers to help them overcome work-related obstacles resulting from disability.
Fay (29) from London, who took part in a pilot, said:
Sophie Corlett, Mind's Director of External Relations, said:
Notes to Editor:
- To find out more information on Access to Work visit http://www.jobcentreplus.gov.uk
- The Government’s first ever National Strategy for Mental Health and Employment will be published in the autumn. The strategy will include expectations of employers, healthcare professionals, organisations and individuals to improve well-being in the workplace.
- The Department for Work and Pensions has asked Dr Rachel Perkins, Director of Quality Assurance and User Experience of SW London and St George’s Mental Health Trust, supported by Paul Farmer, Chief Executive of Mind, and Dr Paul Litchfield, Chief Medical Officer of BT Group plc, to make recommendations on how it can better help people with mental health conditions back to work. This will draw on the pioneering and successful work she has undertaken for those with the most severe conditions.
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Middle-aged male smokers with high blood pressure and raised cholesterol levels face dying about 10 years before healthier counterparts, a study warns.
The UK study looked at more than 19,000 civil servants aged 40-69 and traced what happened to them 38 years later.
It concluded that men with these three risk factors could expect a 10-year shorter life from 50 years of age.
The British Heart Foundation said it was an important reminder for everyone over 40 to have a heart health check.
The study, published in the British Medical Journal, was set up in 1967-70 at the peak of the vascular disease epidemic in the UK.
Participants had their height, weight, blood pressure, lung function, cholesterol and blood glucose levels measured and completed a questionnaire about their previous medical history, smoking habits, employment grade and marital status.
Current smokers made up 42% of the men, 39% had high blood pressure and 51% had high cholesterol.
They were followed up nearly 40 years later in 2005 by which time 13,501 had died.
Risk factors
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RISK FACTORS FACTS
26% men & 25% women in England aged 35-49 smoke
23% men & 22% women in England aged 50-59 smoke
34% men & 26% women in England aged 45-54 have high blood pressure
74% men & 78% women in England aged 45-54 have high cholesterol
Source: BHF
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The researchers from the University of Oxford focused on smoking, high blood pressure and cholesterol because they are the main cardiovascular risk factors.
But when they broadened it out to look at all risk factors including obesity, diabetes and employment grade, they found a 15-year life expectancy difference between the 5% with the highest number of risk factors and the 5% who had the lowest number of risk factors.
The proportion of deaths attributed to vascular disease in old age has declined from about 60% in 1950 to less than 40% in 2005 for both men and women.
Dr Robert Clarke, of the Clinical Trial Service Unit at the University, led the study.
Nobody can guarantee that if you live the life of a saint and the diet of a rabbit that you will live longer
He said: "We've shown that men at age 50 who smoke, have high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels can expect to survive to 74 years of age, while those who have none of these risk factors can expect to live until 83.
"It is precisely this kind of very prolonged follow-up study that is necessary to get these results - that modest differences in heart risk factors can accurately predict significant differences in life expectancy.
"The results give people another way of looking at heart disease risk factors that can be understood more readily.
"If you stop smoking or take measures to deal with high blood pressure or body weight, it will translate into increased life expectancy. "
Healthy life
Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director at the BHF, said: "This important study puts a figure on the life-limiting effects of smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
"It provides a stark illustration of how these risk factors in middle-age can reduce life expectancy.
"The good news is that all of us can make changes to help us live a healthy life for longer, even after 50.
"We know that stopping smoking and reducing blood pressure and cholesterol, by lifestyle changes and/or tablets, can prevent the onset of heart disease - and these findings suggest it could make a decade of difference to our lives.
"Although the study only involved men, there is no reason why the same should not apply to women.
"So, I urge all men and women over 40 to have a health check - that all GPs can provide - which will include finding out their blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and starting to address any areas of concern."
Jane Landon, deputy chief executive of the National Heart Forum, said: "Public health strategies to discourage smoking and promote healthy eating and active lifestyles from childhood are vital to prevent the accumulation in middle age of these avoidable risk factors."
Professor Alan Maryon-Davis, president of the UK Faculty of Public Health, said: "These findings also help to explain why people who are less well off are more likely to die younger.
"Poorer people tend to smoke more, eat less healthy diets and suffer more psychosocial stress - all adding to their risk of heart disease. These are the people who need help most."
A flagship government strategy to train an army of therapists to get the nation off antidepressants and into work could be dramatically scaled back amid claims it is experiencing problems.
The government claims the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (Iapt) programme will treat 900,000 people and help about half of them to make a full recovery. It also aims to get 25,000 people suffering from anxiety and depression off sick pay and benefits by 2010/11.
But the Observer understands there are now concerns about whether these targets can be met. The Iapt Expert Reference Group – the body that oversees the implementation of the programme – was told last month that only 400 out of the 3,600 therapists needed to run it are fully trained.
Only 2,000 patients who have completed a course have so far come off benefits, suggesting the target of 25,000 by 2010/11 will be difficult to achieve. A number of core staff responsible for its roll-out have been asked to reapply for their jobs.
It has also emerged that the lion's share of the £173m budget for the programme will not be ringfenced as mental health experts had originally believed. Instead the remaining £100m yet to be allocated will be spent however NHS trusts choose.
Experts said that in the jaws of a recession this will "inevitably" mean the money will be transferred from the programme to other more "visible" frontline NHS services, a move that will have a drastic impact on its efficacy.
The possibility is likely to dismay the programme's supporters who believe it offers a vital alternative to the tens of millions of antidepressants, such as Seroxat and Prozac, that are prescribed by doctors in the UK every year. Using Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which helps people challenge negative thought patterns, the programme, which will run until 2011, has been heavily promoted by the government as an antidote to "Sicknote Britain".
Around 15% of the population suffers from depression or anxiety. The two cost the UK taxpayer some £12bn a year and some million people are off work and claiming benefits because of mental health problems. Professor Lord Richard Layard, a former government adviser whose 2006 report on depression was instrumental in establishing the programme, has claimed that, after fewer than 16 CBT sessions, at least half of people with depression or clinical anxiety will see significant improvement in their mental health.
The programme was recently expanded to help people who have lost their jobs during the recession. But a special hotline set up to offer counselling to them is receiving only about 25 calls a month because few people are aware of its existence.
"Iapt is a great idea whose implementation seems to have gone wrong," said David Pink, chief executive officer of the UK Council for Psychotherapy, which has argued for the scheme to be expanded to include more forms of therapy. "Now there is a danger it no longer seems to be improving access to psychological therapies."
Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrats' health spokesman, said it was "utterly outrageous" that the government did not intend to protect the programme's budget. "It will inevitably be curtailed as a result," he said. "The same thing will happen this time round as in the last recession – mental health will lose out because it's an easy target."
Insiders blamed the way the programme had been introduced for some of its "teething" problems. There has also been confusion over how NHS trusts are recording their performance. Last month the Department of Health issued them with new guidance on targets, the fourth time it has done so. One person familiar with the programme said it did little to encourage a relationship between practitioner and patient and that "some patients ended up spending more time filling in forms than being with someone".
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said: "In its initial stages, much of the Iapt programme funding was allocated centrally, but as the service becomes better established we are discussing how best to make the change to more conventional arrangements."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/oct/04/mental-health-therapy-cbt-...
http://www.tacklementalhealth.org.uk/