AS recently as August 2022, NHS Employers was encouraging trusts to 'Recruit mental health first aiders and wellbeing champions into your organisation'1. And according to our research in autumn 2019, around half of private and public sector organisations with in-house OH services were using mental health first aid (MHFA) training for selected staff2. Evidence available at that time suggested that while MHFA training was effective in boosting trainees' knowledge of mental health and their confidence in providing support, research was lacking on whether workplace MHFA training resulted in improved wellbeing among the workforce generally, or better mental health outcomes for the recipients of the intervention. Given its popularity, high-quality studies were badly needed to establish whether workplace MHFA could deliver meaningful benefits, ie support the mental health of workers. A cluster randomised controlled trial (cRCT) in UK schools, led by researchers from the Universities of Bristol and Cardiff, has since found that it did not3,4.
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