Update on the CLC’s Mental Health project
Since last year’s July 2025 CLC’s Health Safety and Well-Being Summit, the CLC has made significant progress on its mental health project. The core project team (membership set out below) would like to provide the wider industry with a detailed update on its progress.
Core group membership
- Henrietta Frater: The Crown Estate
- Cass Humble: The Crown Estate
- Stuart Young: Department for Business and Trade
- Carla Toro: Warwick Medical School, The University of Warwick
- Samantha Downie: Mates in Mind
- David Bucksley: BAM Nuttall
- Kari Sprostranova : Heathrow
The CLC’s mental health project is aiming- through the lens of prevention- to i) improve understanding of psychosocial hazards in construction and ii) identify workplace solutions to drive down the incidence of ill health throughout all levels of the industry.
As a starting point, the University of Warwick held a series of regional focus groups, in autumn 2024, with on the ground workers to understand the primary roots causes impacting their mental health and that of their peers. This data was combined with interviews with new entrants to construction and a UK and Ireland rapid review of all other research studies. Some of the key themes emerging from those discussions included (not in any priority order):
- Late Payments and financial insecurity.
- Job insecurity.
- Loneliness and missing family events when working away from home.
- A hierarchical culture.
- Poor quality welfare facilities.
- Excessive work hours including shift working and working to unmanageable deadlines.
We then issued a public consultation- inviting views on those identified primary root causes- and engaged widely with relevant industry forums and organisations during this consultation.
The consultation received over 3000 responses, which are currently being analysed using Thematic Analysis by researchers at Warwick Medical School.
Between now and July, the team will be:
- Analysing the consultation responses and through iterative consultation with key stakeholders and international experts, translate to a Hierarchy of Controls (HOC).
- Developing an action plan for industry.
- writing a Joint Code of Practice (in collaboration with our partners), which will be evidence-based (drawing on the consultation analysis and HOC) with a systems-thinking methodology that will seek to achieve sustainable long-term change within the industry.
If you have any questions about the project, please contact Stuart Young
