Dame Carol Black visits Teacher Support Network's Contact Centre in May 2008

Teacher Support Network today welcomed the government's paper ‘Improving health and work: changing lives'; written in response to the March review of the health of the UK's working population.

The command paper is based on the paper ‘Working for a Healthier Tomorrow'; written by the National Director for Health and Work, Dame Carol Black. It proposes government action to improve the health and wellbeing of all those in employment across the UK.

Plans include funding for ‘Health, Work and Wellbeing Co-ordinators', who will encourage local public sector employers to be “exemplars” on health and work activity.

Action on health and wellbeing is particularly urgent in teaching, where the pressures of the job ensure high levels of stress, anxiety and depression, frequent sickness absence and poor levels of staff retention.

In a survey conducted by Teacher Support Network, more than two-thirds of those questioned had seen their physical health, professional performance and personal life suffer as a result of stress and over a third had taken time off work to cope.

Dame Carol visited Teacher Support Network's Contact Centre in May to investigate how the charity supports the emotional and physical needs of the profession.

Teacher Support Network Chief Executive Patrick Nash said: “We warmly welcome the government's commitment to address the health and wellbeing needs of the UK's working population.

“Dame Carol's report estimated that the annual cost of poor health to the UK economy to be £100 billion. Poor emotional and physical wellbeing – combined with an absence of measures amongst employers to address such issues – means increased sickness absence and poor performances.

“Teaching experiences these problems as much as any other part of the workforce. We will be bringing out a report on tackling health and wellbeing within the profession next month. This will be based on consultation with Dame Carol's office and key players from across the world of education.

“We hope to be able to contribute actively to the implementation of these policies and pilots, particularly in the realm of education.

“In the meantime, we believe this broad range of measures could make a real difference to addressing the health and wellbeing needs of teachers and the UK workforce generally.”