Billy Watson: Business can't afford to ignore issue of poor mental health

One in ten workers has sought support from their doctors and 7 per cent have started taking antidepressants for stress and mental health problems since the start of the recession. Longer hours, low morale and increased competition between colleagues contribute to an already worrying picture.

This is not a solely English problem. In "Crunch Time for Scotland's Mental Health" (2009), SAMH found that people who had been affected by the recession were up to eight times more likely to have sought treatment for mental health problems for the first time.

Research commissioned by SAMH found that the annual social and economic cost of mental health problems in Scotland amounts to a staggering 8.6 billion.

Clearly, the government and employers must act now to help those who are experiencing problems with their mental health for the first time.

In these difficult financial times, there can be no healthy working economy without mentally healthy employees.

So what can employers do? Having an open environment is a good start. If employees feel unable to disclose a mental health problem due to fear of stigma, accessing the right help and support is unlikely to happen.

Signing up to the national Healthy Working Lives/Health Works programmes will send a strong message that people with mental health problems will be supported, not stigmatised.

Creating an atmosphere in which people can talk about their mental health and address problems before it becomes a crisis will help to retain staff and decrease sickness absence.

We cannot continue to ignore the poor mental health of our workforce. In pure financial terms, we cannot afford to.

Billy Watson is chief executive of the Scottish Association for Mental Health