WE know what the advice says: if you suffer from a mental health problem, talk about it – to family, friends, and colleagues – but is it any surprise that so few of us do? There is still a huge stigma around mental health issues and, every day, it is preventing people from talking, and asking for help.

Part of the problem is a lack of openness at work – an issue which has been laid bare in a new survey of 2,000 workers by the Mental Health Foundation.

Shockingly, 40 per cent of Scottish workers who took part in the survey said they would not talk openly about a mental health problem for fear it would affect their job prospects. In addition, 42 per cent said they would make up some physical excuse for an absence from their job, such as a bad back; and 59 per cent in the survey said their workplace needed to make improvements to their current systems and attitudes to mental health.

That is a shocking verdict on the modern workplace and raises an important question: why is it not a legal requirement for employers to have an established procedure if staff have concerns about their mental health?

But the survey also raises a challenge for us all, which is to talk as openly as we can about mental health. Not only would that encourage others to do the same, it would ensure that more of us, if and when we need it, will be able to get the help we need.