A book that aims to help businesses dealing with increasing mental health issues post pandemic has just been published.

“The Healthy Business Bridge” comes out as the cost of mental health issues in business and industry continues to rise.

It is based on author Dr Doreen Miller’s innovative health risk management system and aims to help management teams find the root cause of employee sickness absence, particularly mental health issues.

The system aims to help human resource professionals and other managers “find the root cause of costly ill-health and poor performance in the business.”

The approach involves a scoring system based on Dr Miller’s R-O-P-E System. This looks at roles, organisation, people and work environment within the business.

The section on people's roles looks at the pressure within the role, the hours of work and travel withing the role; all areas that might lead to stress and resulting ill-health.

Issues around the organisation can focus on change within the business, the organisational structure and the culture of the business and communication within it.

The scoring area on people looks at physical health, mental health, social health, disabilities and team building.

The focus on the work environment considers and looks at scoring health and safety risks, ergonomics, the work environment internal and external and a section on the value of working together.

There is a chapter on health risk management, policies and insurance benefits.

As well as general occupational health guidance, there is a chapter dealing specifically with managing the health risks of Covid-19.

In the chapter on Covid-19 she writes on the uncertainty caused to people's working lives.

The author wrote: "Sky divers often feel like this as they fall to earth, but they have a plan. They work as a team before, during and after they have landed, supporting on another at every stage."

The chapter includes guidance on dealing with different work patterns where more people are working from home and the issues that this creates.

Each chapter finishes with a series of questions aimed at helping the reader apply the content to their professional situation.

The book has a foreword by Lord Rose, the current chairman of Asda and former chairman of Ocado Group and Marks and Spencer plc. In it he writes: "Doreen's search for a way for employers to find the root cause of the ill health symptoms of people at work is increasingly important as sickness absence due to mental ill health and also health-related poor performance continue to rise.

"Her solution is intriguing and lies in a series of stepping stones that form her new R-O-P-E System which, as she describes with supporting stories, has enabled her to reach the root cause in many difficult and challenging cases with substantial savings to the business."

Dr Miller’s company Miller Health Management has worked with more than 400 companies and public organisations including those with workplaces in Norfolk and Suffolk.

After training as a doctor at Guy’s Hospital Medical school in London and working in a GP practice, Edinburgh-born Dr Miller moved into occupational health beginning at leading retail group Marks & Spencer, where she worked for 28 years.

After introducing innovative systems at the business, she was appointed chief medical officer there.

She was later seconded by the Department of Health to be the senior fellow in occupational mental health where she initiated and co-authored the book “Work and Mental Health- an employer’s guide.”

She set up her own business which works employers and their HR professionals to "help them achieve employee health at work that results in a more healthy, productive and profitable business."

The book is distributed through Amazon and Ingram Spark and costs £17.99 in hardback, £12.99 in paperback and £9.99 as an e-book.