Mental health issues in financial sector escalating

The ‘Stress in the City’ initiative has been launched by financial services firm Legal and General and will involve the company releasing new data over the next four months to show the growing problem of long-term sickness absence in this sector.

To coincide with the publication of data it will also be locating posters in London’s main commuter train stations.

The campaign follows the release of Legal and General’s internal Group Income Protection claim statistics, which show that 42% of claims in the financial sector are for mental health illnesses.

The HSEs Labour Force Survey estimates that in 2010/11 10.8 million working days were lost due to mental health issues such as stress, depression and anxiety.

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Diane Buckley, Managing Director of Group Protection at Legal and General, said on the launch of the new campaign:

“What we are doing is raising awareness of the increase in stress-related absences and saying to employers that they have a role to play in ensuring the mental wellbeing of their staff in the workplace.”

This comes off the back of findings by the Department for Work and Pensions which show that work-related stress was the most common health problem for telephoning the Government’s pilot occupational health advice line, yet only 17% of employers from all sectors have any form of stress management advice and support in place.