Organisational uptake of NICE guidance in promoting employees’ psychological health

Weinberg, A; Hudson, J; Pearson, A; Chaudhury, S

Abstract

Background
Annual costs to organisations of poor mental health are estimated to be between £33bn-£42bn. The UK’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) has produced evidence-based guidance on improving employees’ psychological health, designed to encourage organisations to take preventative steps in tackling this high toll. However the extent of implementation is not known outside the National Health Service.
Aims
To assess the awareness and implementation of NICE guidance on workplace psychological health.
Methods
163 organisations participated in a survey of UK-based private, public and third sector organisations employing an accumulated minimum of 322,033 workers.
Results
77% of organisations were aware of the NICE guidance for improving mental well-being in the workplace, but only 37% were familiar with its recommendations. Less than half were aware of systems in place for monitoring employees’ mental well-being and only 12% confirmed that this NICE guidance had been implemented in their workplace. Where employee health and well-being featured as a regular board agenda item, awareness and implementation of NICE guidance were more likely. Significant associations were found between organisation sector and size and uptake of many specific features of NICE guidance.
Conclusions
The majority of organisations are aware of NICE guidance in general, but there is a wide gap between this and possession of detailed knowledge and in particular with implementation. The role of sector and size of organisation is relevant to uptake of some features of NICE guidance, although it is clear that organisational leadership is important where raised awareness and implementation are concerned.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 6, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Nov 7, 2018
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2019
• Deposit Date: Sep 17, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 7, 2019
• Journal: Occupational Medicine
• Print ISSN: 0962-7480
• Electronic ISSN: 1471-8405
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Volume: 69
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 47-53
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/occmed/kqy148
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1093/occmed/kqy148
• Related Public URLs: https://academic.oup.com/occmed
• Additional Information: Additional Information : The lead author was invited to present the findings of this paper by the British Psychological Society at the European Academy of Occupational Health Psychology in Lisbon (6-8th Sept, 2018). The invitation to present this at an international conference was issued in light of the previous lack of evaluation of government initiatives to improve wellbeing at work.