Corporate report

Voluntary reporting on disability, mental health and wellbeing: workforce report 2019

Published 5 July 2019

1. Foreword

We are delighted to share with you the Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) first annual report on disability, mental health and wellbeing.

DHSC is committed to creating an environment in which individuals can flourish and, just as importantly, be themselves. Like every other employer, we have a responsibility to support employees with mental health issues and promote the wellbeing of our entire workforce. But as the government department responsible for supporting people to live healthier more independent lives for longer, our vision is to be a leading organisation in policy and practice around disability, mental health and wellbeing.

Following the publication of the Thriving at Work Review led by Dennis Stevenson and Paul Farmer in 2017, which looked at how employers can better support all employees, including those with poor mental health or wellbeing to remain in and thrive at work, DHSC committed to meet all of the recommendations for large employers. As the Disability Champion and Wellbeing Champions for DHSC, we are proud that we are continuing to make good progress against all recommendations, with a wide range of support and initiatives in place. We equally recognise there is still more to do.

A key recommendation from the Thriving at Work Review, led to the creation of a new voluntary reporting framework on disability, mental health and wellbeing. Using this framework, we have outlined in this report the support DHSC has in place for all our employees, encompassing those with disabilities, support for people with mental health issues and the wider initiatives in place for all our people to promote their wellbeing. It also shares some of the key data that informs our priorities and actions. It shows what we have achieved – of which there is a great deal – and what more we still need to do.

This is our first report and we would be interested in receiving any comments or thoughts before our next report in 2020. Thank you for reading.

Jenny Richardson, DHSC Disability Champion

Frances Oram and Sophie Langdale, DHSC Wellbeing Champions

2. Disability

2.1 Championing disability

Diversity and inclusion and health and wellbeing are priorities for the department and are regularly discussed by the Executive Committee. In April 2019, the newly appointed DHSC Disability Champion presented detailed analysis and insight of workforce data, with a focus on disability, to the Executive Committee for discussion. There was a rich conversation about job design, how we recruit, induct and improve the employee experience. We followed up our commitment for transparency by sharing the data and insight across the department.

The departmental senior Diversity and Inclusion Champions meet quarterly as the Diversity and Inclusion Committee. The committee members sponsor and champion departmental staff networks, working with them to establish and deliver their priorities. The DHSC Disability Champion works closely with the disability networks, as discussed in section 1.6, and has recently formed a steering group to inform their priorities.

2.2 Being a Disability Confident Leader

Fundamental to our diversity and inclusion strategy, the department has been recognised as a Disability Confident Leader since 2017, under the government’s Disability Confident scheme.

As a Level 3 Leader, the highest level, we champion diversity and seek to positively change attitudes, behaviours and cultures. We seek to continue to actively improve the employee experience for our staff with disabilities in all areas of the employee lifecycle, as part of our diversity and inclusion strategy.

The departmental strategy supports the wider Civil Service disability and inclusion strategy to increase representation of staff with a disability across the department, including within the Senior Civil Service.

DHSC is also a member of the Business Disability Forum and draw upon their tools and resources to enhance the support available to employees.

2.3 Declaration rates

As at December 2018, 67% of DHSC employees had declared a disability status and we continue to encourage colleagues to complete their declaration. From this 67% population, 7.4% of staff said they had a disability or health condition. Although the percentage of employees with a declared disability is lower than the Civil Service average of 10%, this is an increase of 0.4% against the reported figure from August 2018.

2.4 Support

The department recognises the importance of supporting staff with disabilities to be at their best in work. We encourage the use of the Civil Service workplace adjustment passport, a document supporting individuals and their line managers in detailing the reasonable adjustments a person requires in the workplace. This is transferrable between roles and departments to enable a smooth transition of workplace adjustments.

We are fortunate enough to have our own dedicated in-house workplace adjustments team. This team assist line managers to ensure that recommendations from workplace and occupational health assessments are taken forward. In 2018, over 70 individuals were supported by the team to put into place specialist equipment such as orthopaedic chairs and assistive software.

Fundamental to our health and wellbeing offer, we provide support through our occupational health service to provide workplace and specialist assessments, such as dyslexia assessments. DHSC employees also have access to Workplace Wellness, an independent employee assistance provider that provides information, advice and support. This includes advice from qualified professionals on topics such as physical or mental health, stress and depression.

2.5 Training and development

The department also has a variety of development and talent schemes, some of which are targeted at particular groups. For example, the Civil Service Positive Action Pathway is for under-represented groups and specifically targets staff with a disability as one of the four targeted areas. This pathway offers a formal 1-year learning programme and aims to increase skills, knowledge and confidence as well as overcoming barriers.

In house, the department has recently launched the second cohort of reverse mentors, with targeted promotion through EnABLE, the disability network. This scheme offers the opportunity for individuals in junior grades to mentor a senior leader in the department and offer insight into their experiences and perspectives.

2.6 Staff networks

The department has over 20 staff networks that provide support for the wellbeing of our staff and bring their insight into the development of HR policy. The well-established disability network, EnABLE, provides a safe space for individuals to share experiences. In 2018, the department was the first across the Civil Service to launch a ‘Diversity of Thought’ network, which promotes diversity of thinking styles to help staff to be their best at work and to support effective decision making. This network also looks to help to reduce cognitive bias and improve understanding of a number of neuro-divergent conditions including autism, high sensitivity and dyslexia.

2.7 Employee engagement

The staff networks, champions and HR work together to have regular communication and engagement with staff. There are regular intranet articles and blogs to raise awareness of national campaigns and sharing through personal stories. For example, in December 2018, on International Day of People with Disabilities, the EnABLE network chair blogged on the internal intranet to raise awareness of the day and shared top tips for changing the workplace environment when considering the needs of neurodiverse colleagues.

The staff networks also come together regularly to promote the support they can offer to colleagues. In May 2019, the staff networks, including EnABLE and the Diversity of Thought Network, held a marketplace event to celebrate National Staff Networks Day.

We also measure engagement through the annual Civil Service People Survey. In 2018 the People Survey tells us that there is a 6-percentage point engagement index gap between staff with a disability and staff with no disability. Although this gap has closed slightly since 2017 (reducing by 1 percentage points), we recognise there is still more we can do, and this is a priority for improvement within our diversity and inclusion action plan.

3. Mental health and wellbeing

3.1 A key priority

Mental health is at the core of the DHSC health and wellbeing programme. Our 50 trained mental health first aiders (MHFAs) are volunteers from within the department. They provide support to colleagues and are skilled in how to give appropriate help and support but also how to take appropriate action if a crisis situation arises. In DHSC the network of MHFAs also regularly host drop-in sessions and take part in raising wider awareness of mental health issues. We will continue to grow and develop this network. In 2019 we rolled out MHFA refresher training to enhance the MHFA offer for staff.

3.2 Support available

The line manager referral to occupational health services also provides mental health related advice when individuals are at or off work and assists in planning returns to work. Employees have access to Workplace Wellness, the employee assistance programme, which is available 24/7, 365 days a year, which provides advice on a range of issues and also the provision to arrange individual counselling.

We have also built good relationships with a range of external partners to deliver awareness and promote mental health initiatives. Partners include the Charity for Civil Servants and mental health charities, among others. This has included partnering with Cruse Bereavement Care to provide workplace bereavement training to over 35 of our staff so that they are prepared to provide support to colleagues at these difficult points in their life.

We have an active network of over 40 health and wellbeing advocates who are volunteers that are passionate about wellbeing. Their purpose is to drive health and wellbeing initiatives in their business areas. Over 150 employees also recently attended mental health awareness sessions and we promote online learning packages such as ‘Mental Health at Work’.

3.3 Promoting national campaigns

During Mental Health Awareness Week 2019, we launched a video as part of the national ‘This is Me’ video campaign featuring employees talking about their mental health. The video was the most popular internal video that DHSC has produced. The DHSC building in Victoria Street, London was lit up green during the week and we promoted the green ribbon campaign as a visible show of support for mental health awareness. We will continue to promote and raise awareness during the year, for example on World Mental Health day in October.

3.4 Positive wellbeing

We are building leader confidence in embedding wellbeing with their teams, with our Wellbeing Confident Leaders training as a catalyst which focuses on positive wellbeing. The Wellbeing Confident Leaders training has been rolled out across the Civil Service for senior civil servants and aims to provide leaders with the knowledge and confidence to role model and influence positive wellbeing. We have a target of delivering this training to 90% of our senior civil service by March 2020. As at May 2019, we are making good progress against this target and have already trained 56% of our senior civil servants.

This year the Civil Service People Survey questions were mapped to provide a proxy stress and PERMA index. The stress index aligns to the Health and Safety Executive’s stress management tool, and the department result is 27%, up by 1 percentage point from last year.

PERMA is a model of measuring and understanding wellbeing, designed by Martin Seligman. PERMA is made up of 5 elements:

• positive emotion
• engagement
• relationships
• meaning
• accomplishments

The PERMA index represents the extent to which employees are flourishing in the workplace, and is 74% for the department, down by 1 percentage point from last year. This is telling us we need to ensure that we create an environment in which employees can flourish and be their best at work.

3.5 Creating a safe space

In supporting an open and inclusive culture in which employees can talk about mental health, we promote our ACAS trained ‘Speak Out’ advisers, who support staff with concerns at work to act as an independent intermediary.

Our People Survey results demonstrate an increase in wellbeing engagement scores in most areas.

People Survey wellbeing scores

Question	2014	2016	2018
Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?	64%	57%	66%
Overall, how happy did you feel yesterday?	60%	55%	62%
Overall, how anxious did you feel yesterday? (% negative)	30%	37%	37%

4. What we are doing next?

4.1 Refreshing our strategy

We will be refreshing both our DHSC diversity and inclusion and health and wellbeing strategies, to ensure that we remain focused on the right areas for our people.

Key areas of focus will include:

• the launch of our refreshed performance management approach which includes new performance health checks that will put the focus on regular conversations, with wellbeing central to these discussions. Alongside this we will be providing enhanced support and guidance for staff with a disability and their line managers

• embedding diverse panels for all senior civil servant recruitment, with at least one panellist either having a visible or non-visible disability and/or an individual from an ethnic minority background

• promoting an inclusive culture, and as part of this improving our insight through increased declaration rates

The Civil Service has the ambition to be the UK’s most inclusive employer by 2020. To meet this ambition, we are seeking to measure our levels of inclusion to provide further evidence and insight. Working with the Cabinet Office, the department is the first in the Civil Service to lead a pilot to measure inclusion and for these outcomes to be used to form a maturity model that will be rolled out across the Civil Service. The department will use the results from the pilot, to further inform the diversity and inclusion strategy refresh.

4.2 Working with our executive agencies

We will continue to work closely and share best practice across the DHSC health family, with our executive agencies Public Health England (PHE) and Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). MHRA has trained 18 MHFAs who operate in the workplace as mental health champions and they have launched an informal employee listening services which offers support to employees who feel they have an issue at work. They are planning a refresher programme for their mental health champions and Listening Service volunteers.

There are also progressive initiatives that can be shared wider across the Civil Service. For example, PHE have partnered with Project SEARCH to provide practical work training for young adults with learning disabilities and autism. These young people are given the opportunity to undertake a number of departmental rotations, including front of house, media and admin, to help them to gain meaningful employment opportunities and build their confidence.

4.3 Championing diversity

Our champions for disability and for health and wellbeing are working closely with the staff networks to provide practical support for staff, including networking opportunities, education and training to discuss and learn more about common issues. We will continue to promote talent and development schemes within underrepresented groups, to ensure there is a talent pipeline for these individuals to the Senior Civil Service.