IoD Scotland – What business leaders need to know about Mental Health and Long COVID in the workplace

Dr Clare Rayner qualified in 1990 from St Andrew and Manchester Universities, UK. She is a retired consultant occupational physician and has worked across several sectors, including transport, manufacturing, healthcare, heavy metals, chemical electronics, food + pharmaceutical, construction, service, and utilities. She was an Honorary Lecturer at the Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health, University of Manchester until 2018 and worked as a Trainer for the National Education Project for Health and Work (2010-13). Clare is an experienced trainer and group facilitator with CIPD and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® qualifications and particular expertise and experience as a communication skills trainer.

Clare talks with first-hand experience of Long COVID and in April 2020 co-founded a large medical team set up to track, profile and educate on the unfolding scenario of Long COVID. With these colleagues, she has written several papers on this novel condition including three editorials on returning to work after Long COVID, and a UK consensus document on its clinical management. For FOM and the Society of Occupational Medicine (SOM) Taskforce for Long Covid she has written the definitive leaflets for workers and employers, which has been translated into 20 languages for the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work. She is a member of the WHO Guideline Development Group on Rehabilitation of Post-Covid Conditions, whose guidelines will be released soon.

She has addressed the WHO as a spokesperson for patient groups with COVID-related health issues and is currently collaborating with various groups to develop appropriate health services, including the Post-COVID International Working Group with the Department of Rehabilitation Innovation at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, and is Public Involvement Lead for the NIHR ‘Locomotion’ research project.

Professor Neil Greenberg is a consultant academic, occupational and forensic psychiatrist based at King’s College London. Neil served in the United Kingdom Armed Forces for more than 23 years and has deployed, as a psychiatrist and researcher, to a number of hostile environments including Afghanistan and Iraq. At King’s Neil leads on a number of military mental health projects and is a principal investigator within a nationally funded Health Protection Research unit. He also chairs the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) Special Interest Group in Occupational Psychiatry and is leading the World Psychiatric Association position statement on mental health in the workplace.

Neil provided psychological input for Foreign Office personnel after the events of September 11th 2001 and in Bali after 12th October 2002 bombings and has provided psychological input into the repatriation of UK nationals who have been kidnapped. He has also assisted with the aftermath management of number of other significant incidents including assisting the London Ambulance Service in the wake of the London Bombings in 2005 and oil workers after the 2013 In Amenas terrorist incident in Algeria.

During the 2020/21 Covid-19 crisis, Neil was a member of the Public Health England expert reference panel and has, and continues to be, an advisor for NHS People wellbeing/recovery team. He also established the mental health support plan at the London Nightingale Hospital in 2020 and has published widely on psychological support for healthcare, and other key workers.

Neil has published more than 300 scientific papers and book chapters and has been the Secretary of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, the President of the UK Psychological Trauma Society and Specialist Advisor to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee. He also runs March on Stress (www.marchonstress.com) which is a psychological health consultancy.