3. Record-Keeping and Monitoring

Record-Keeping

As with every aspect of health and safety, it is vital to keep records!  Every reported case of mental health problems must be recorded, but before you start drawing up forms and writing procedures, check with the HR department or provider at your organisation.  There may already be a wellbeing policy in place with associated procedures, and there’s no point in duplication. 

What you must consider however is the health and safety ramifications of workers suffering from poor mental health.  If there is an HR system already in place, check it through to see whether this aspect has been covered.  And obviously, if there is no existing provision, you need to start one.

Each worker who has a mental health issue must be risk assessed.  These assessments must remain confidential.  (See the section on Risk Assessments for more information.)  As a Competent Person, you must determine whether the worker’s condition affects their performance and, if necessary, move them to other duties until the situation has improved.  Keep notes of all meetings, keep all relevant emails, revisit the risk assessment with the affected worker, modifying it as his/her condition changes.  Liaise with the HR department if you have one to make sure the records align.

Monitoring

As you would expect, this means maintaining contact with the affected worker to gauge how the condition progresses: is it improving?  Is he/she getting worse?  Are colleagues being affected?  How you record this is up to you.  It’s difficult to draw up a form to capture all the necessary information, mainly because mental health issues present differently in each individual.  What is important is that you build up a record showing that you have taken the necessary steps to help the worker recover.  Wherever possible, obtain the worker’s signature to show that he/she has understood the measures you have agreed together and have put in place.

If the worker is being helped by a GP and/or hospital consultant, you are entitled to ask what their advice is.  Again, we’re veering into HR territory here, so check first that you are not breaking any rules about patient confidentiality.