The SOM Podcast: GP Essentials series

Episode 2: Work and mental health with Professor Neil Greenberg

Mental ill health accounts for around a third of all fit notes issued and is the most common reason for issuing a fit note in General Practice. In this second episode of our GP Essentials series, Dr Lara Shemtob speaks to Professor Neil Greenberg about why so many people are signed off with mental ill health, the effect of the pandemic on workplace mental health, and the importance of creating and maintaining psychologically healthy workplaces.

They discuss the connection between mental ill health and presenteeism among NHS staff and structural and procedural issues within the NHS, such as understaffing, low pay and long hours. Professor Greenberg explains that while wellbeing Apps, mindfulness and yoga classes can be helpful to the people who use them, crucial above all else is fixing these structural issues – ensuring that the bottom level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is in place.

In terms of mental ill health among the general working population, Professor Greenberg encourages GPs is to think about who owns the problem. There are opportunities for the individual to change their workplace and get middle managers and seniors to endorse change.

Professor Neil Greenberg is a consultant academic, occupational and forensic psychiatrist based at King’s College London. Neil served in the United Kingdom Armed Forces and has deployed, as a psychiatrist and researcher, to a number of hostile environments. At King’s, Neil leads on a number of military mental health projects and is a principal investigator within a nationally funded Health Protection Research unit. He chairs the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) Special Interest Group in Occupational Psychiatry and is leading the World Psychiatric Association position statement on mental health in the workplace. Neil has been the Secretary of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, the President of the UK Psychological Trauma Society and Specialist Advisor to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Neil has worked closely with NHSEI, PHE and has published widely on psychological support for healthcare, and other key workers.

Further reading: https://www.nhsemployers.org/articles/mental-health-workplace

Fit note: guidance for occupational health professionals, updated on 17th December 2021 - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/fit-note-guidance-for-occupational-health-professionals

About the host:

Dr Lara Shemtob in an Academic Clinical Fellow in General Practice and GPST3 at Imperial College London with an interest in occupational health. Lara works at Parkview Practice in White City and has recently undertaken the Diploma in Occupational Medicine.