Building a mental health workforce fit for the future

We are proud contributors to the briefing published this week: Building a mental health workforce fit for the future.

Here CEO Philippa Mariani shares her reflections on the importance of the piece.

It was a privilege to be in the room with sector partners at the national workforce roundtable co-hosted by Centre for Mental Health, NHS Confederation, and Mind.

Together, we made the call loud and clear for a workforce with a diverse range of roles that truly reflects the needs and diversity of the populations they serve.

And, together, we built the case that developing the mental health workforce is at the heart of closing gaps in support, quality, equity and life expectancy in mental health care.

The briefing, reinforces our own call at Think Ahead to grow, invest, and connect mental health professionals within the wider health and social care system.

Retention of great, well-trained people in the workforce is something we talk a lot about at Think Ahead. Apart from the obvious economic and skills benefits to retaining staff, it is also important to reflect on what poor retention says about what our practitioners are experiencing.

When we meet our new cohort of trainee mental health social workers at the beginning of each year of our programme, they are full of passion and commitment, enthusiastic and determined. And yet many of them will struggle. Many of them will wonder if this is really the career for them, and some, sadly, will leave the mental health workforce within the first two years after qualification.

The stark truth is that without our professionals, services suffer.

Our own research from 2021 shows that around 8 in 10 social workers in mental health settings have caseloads that are too large for them to work effectively, and that many work long unsociable hours.

Could a feeling of being overworked, overwhelmed and undervalued have something to do with the exodus? We need to wrap care and support around our newly qualified mental health social workers, especially in the early days, not throw them in at the deep end and watch them sink or swim.

Whilst it’s too early for the data to say that there’s an aging workforce in social work, recent figures from Social Work England have shown that over 25% of registered social workers are over 55 (the average age to leave the profession is 53) and less than 10% are under 30.

This is a crisis in waiting that could be headed off at the pass.

Failure to invest in our people is a root cause of the stretch on services that’s left over a million people stuck on waiting lists.

For every person on those waiting lists, there is a story: a story of worsening of mental health, of waiting for your life to begin again, of not knowing when things might start to feel a little better – of a human cost that should be unacceptable.

It is essential that we improve working lives, create flexible and accessible training pathways, integrate learning across specialisms and professional roles, and make caseloads manageable by matching supply to the growth in need for support.

Our mental health professionals are our greatest asset. If we want a mentally healthier nation, we must prioritise them.

I hope our leaders, policy makers and incoming government pay attention and work together with us to make the difference.