Since 1995, the HDA has co-ordinated the World Mental Health Day (WMHD) campaign in Britain on behalf of the Department of Health. WMHD, which is a yearly event, was established by the World Federation for Mental Health to encourage and promote awareness about mental health issues, to challenge negative stereotypes and to give voice to people's experiences. The WMHD is co-sponsored by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The Mental Health Programme has published a series of fact-sheets, which explore issues that affect the mental health of groups such us children, people with disabilities, and people at work. They can be downloaded at:
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) develops new health and safety laws and standards, inspects workplaces, investigates accidents and cases of ill health; enforces good standards, publishes guidance and advice; provides an information service, and carries out research. During the 1990s, the Health and Safety Executive expanded its activities on work-related stress. It commissioned an independent review of the scientific literature on stress, which resulted in HSE's current guidelines on work-related stress, published in 1995. The guidelines seek to provide a flexible framework for action that employers can adapt to their organisational needs.20 The first prosecution under the Occupational Safety and Health Act for stress-related ill health has been an added impetus to the Health and Safety Executive's work. In 1998 the Health and Safety executive launched a discussion document to develop a new occupational safety and health strategy.
Workers' and employers' organisations
Workers' and employers' organisations are active at the national level in promoting equal opportunities, codes of good practice, and employment of people with disabilities. The Trade Unions Congress and the Confederation of British Industry are the principal organisations representing the workers and employers. There are also employer networks of national and multinational companies, such as the Employment Forum on Disability, that do important work in encouraging good practices among their members, and in removing barriers to the employment of people with disabilities.
THE TRADE UNIONS CONGRESS
Almost one in every three British workers from lorry drivers; office staff, and shop assistants to airline pilots and teachers belongs to a TUC union. The TUC has a combined membership of almost seven million.
The TUC and its affiliated unions have devoted increasing attention to raising awareness of stress as a major source of occupationally related health problems, which affect the mental and physical wellbeing of workers. The TUC recognises that stress is a not just a workplace issue, but also has many non-occupational sources. The general objective of the TUC and its unions is to focus on the jobs their members do in terms of work environment, job design, contractual issues, and working relationships, to determine how the organisation of work creates the stress which leads to ill health.21
In the early 1990s, the TUC co-operated with the Department of Health and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) on a conference which presented good examples of managing mental health issues in the workplace. Since 1996 the TUC has been working jointly with CBI to combat stress. A 1996
