Research and analysis

Thriving at Work: a review of mental health and employers

An independent review of mental health and employers by Lord Dennis Stevenson and Paul Farmer.

Documents

Thriving at Work: the Stevenson/Farmer review of mental health and employers

Request an accessible format.
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email accessible.formats@dwp.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

Easy read: Staying healthy and being happy at work

Request an accessible format.
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email accessible.formats@dwp.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

Details

We published the government response to this independent review on 30 November 2017.

Thriving at Work sets out what employers can do to better support all employees, including those with mental health problems to remain in and thrive through work.

It includes a detailed analysis that explores the significant cost of poor mental health to UK businesses and the economy as a whole. Poor mental health costs employers between £33 billion and £42 billion a year, with an annual cost to the UK economy of between £74 billion and £99 billion.

The review quantifies how investing in supporting mental health at work is good for business and productivity. The most important recommendation is that all employers, regardless of size or industry, should adopt 6 ‘mental health core standards’ that lay basic foundations for an approach to workplace mental health. It also details how large employers and the public sector can develop these standards further through a set of ‘mental health enhanced standards’. The review also makes a series of recommendations to government and other bodies.

Updates to this page

Published 26 October 2017
Last updated 30 November 2017 + show all updates
  1. Added a link to the government response and an easy read version of the review.

  2. First published.

Sign up for emails or print this page