Britain’s ‘never complain, never explain’ motto is stopping employees from speaking up about their mental health, increasing the risk of more serious health issues, experts have warned.
Laying bare the scale of Britain’s so-called ‘sick note’ culture last year, Wes Streeting instructed GPs to stop signing sick letters and instead refer patients to the gym or a job centre.
But healthcare workers at St John’s Ambulance say this pressure to keep going runs the risk of minimising the very real effects of burnout, which can easily snowball into more serious health issues such as anxiety or depression.
Lisa Sharman, head of education and training at the ambulance service, said: ‘When public language suggests people are exaggerating or being written off, it can make some individuals feel even less safe to speak up.’
She added: ‘Any kind of language around mental health that has negative connotations is pushing things back decades.
‘Our trainers hear that stigma and fear are still huge barriers, and many people worry that they’re not going to be taken seriously, or that speaking up actually could affect their job if it’s not seen seriously, or even future prospects.’
St John’s Ambulance has trained more than 40,000 mental health first-aiders in the workplace in recent years, equipping them with the skills to offer early intervention and support to struggling colleagues.
However, Ms Sharman is worried their efforts are being undermined by politicians accusing the nation of laziness.
In November 2025, the government-commissioned Keep Britain Working Review, warned that the UK is ‘sliding into an avoidable crisis’, with the number of 16 to 34-year-olds out of work for mental health reasons rising exponentially.
Prior to this, Streeting ruled that mental health conditions are being ‘overdiagnosed,’ with too many people being ‘written off.’
Whilst he later redacted this statement, admitting that he had overlooked the severity of the issue, Nigel Farage maintained that the culture is ‘creating a class of victims in Britain who will struggle to ever get out of it.’
St John Ambulance latest research found that nearly a third of employees lied to their employer about being ill – when they needed to take time off for their mental health.
Alan Milburn, the former health secretary, who is leading a separate review on youth unemployment, has previously suggested one of the ‘uncomfortable truths’ his report will confront is that work is actually good for people’s mental health.
‘Nearly 1 million young people in Britain are not in education, employment or training – and that number has been rising for four years. This is a national outrage – it’s both a social injustice and an economic catastrophe,’ he said.
But, Ms Sharman said: ‘I think there is a danger of things like burnout becoming buzzwords.’
The aim is for when employees attend the ambulance service’s courses, that rather than just prescribing a ‘duvet day’ for overworked employees, mental health workers try and get to the root cause of the problem.
She said: ‘It’s not always burnout, per se, but it’s exhaustion, emotional overload, or feeling unable to cope.
‘And those are really real experiences, they’re not just buzzwords, so we can’t dismiss them as such.
‘Burnout is often an early warning sign that something is wrong, but if it’s recognised and addressed early, people can and will recover sooner.
She added: ‘I think we’re at a point where we are starting to talk more about mental health, so it would be awful now to put that back in the closet.
‘It’s out now, we need to make sure that we are addressing it in the right way.’
In total, by July last year, the NHS has issued more than 11million ‘fit notes’ – which assess an individuals ability to work – with 93 per cent of these declaring patients ‘not fit for work’ without a plan to help them return to work of find a job in the future.
There are now around 11million economically inactive working age adults in Britain, highlighting the scale of the nation’s sick note culture.
Of this figure, a record 2.8million have been declared unfit to work due to long-term illness, half of whom have mental health issues including anxiety or depression.
