Our approach to supporting our First Bus colleagues with mental health began to take hold across the business in 2019. After becoming aware of some great practice from some of the FirstGroup rail companies, we sought to introduce Mental Health Champions, initially looking for one at each of our 13 Operating Companies (OpCos) to have a single point of contact for on the subject of mental health to signpost people to the most appropriate level of support.
Our sick absence statistics were showing, that along with musculoskeletal conditions, mental health issues were one of the biggest causes of people being off work sick and we needed to do something about it.
We began to promote health and wellbeing more generally following a review of our occupational health provision where some initial trends, supporting material and themes were being pushed out by them.
Our general approach to mental health support at First Bus was to begin by raising awareness and then look to build momentum from there.
