The Government will set up a three-year vanguard project with employers and health providers, aimed at creating a new “healthy work standard”, and reduce employee absenteeism, following recommendations made in the Keep Britain Working review.
This independent review, published today and led by Sir Charlie Mayfield, calls for a “fundamental shift ” in approach to workplace health and wellbeing, moving from a model where health at work is “largely left to the individual and the NHS”, to one where it becomes “a shared responsibility between employers, employees and health services.”
Key to this will be employers, both large and small, working with health service providers. This will include GPs and primary healthcare services as well as occupational health providers, EAPs, insurers and other third parties.
The range of recommendations have been broadly welcomed by the Government.
The report says: “Employers will need to do more. They are uniquely placed to act on prevention, to support rehabilitation, and to remove barriers for disabled people. They also stand to gain most from higher productivity and lower costs.
“Much of what’s required is not additional expenditure: employers already invest billions in health and wellbeing but need greater clarity on what works. The priority now is to get them off the sidelines and onto the pitch.”
One of the key recommendations is the setting up of the ‘Vanguard phase’ of this three year project, involving employers of all sizes. This will look to establish better workplace health provision, and building evidence as to what approaches are most effective via a Workplace Health Intelligence Unit. This will aim to create ‘stay in work’ plans, for healthy employees, with a focus on preventative measures and ‘return to work plans’ for those who are off sick, with a view to delivering faster access to relevant support. Mayfield states that the aim would be for these plans to eventually replace the ‘fit note’ system, issued by GPs.
More than 60 large organisations have agreed to be part of this “vanguard” project. This includes insurers such as Unum and Zurich as well as large employers such as British Airways, Google and Sainsbury’s.
The report sets out the extent of the problem of ill-health in the UK, stating that one in five working-age people are now out of work — a far higher percentage than in other comparable European countries. This figure has been rising, with 800,000 more people now out of work due to health problems, when compared to 2019. The report says that without action this figure will rise by a further 600,000 by 2030.
The report identifies a number of key groups affected, with young adults being particularly hard hit. The report said there had been a significant growth in the number of under 35 year olds out of work with mental health conditions, a figure that has risen by 190,000 (or 76 per cent) between 2019 and 2024.
The report also highlighted problems with older workers leaving the workplace due to musculoskeletal problems, often compounded by multiple health issues and barriers which prevented many disabled people finding and staying in work.
The report also highlighted a “a lack of an effective or consistent support system for employers and their employees in managing health and tackling barriers faced by disabled people. This lack of support is sometimes compounded by a ‘fit note’ system that is not working as intended.”
Mayfield highlighted the support that can be provided by third parties, be it occupational health, EAP providers or insurers, but said provision is often patchy.
“We found that there is a great disparity when it comes to the support available. Some employers offer excellent occupational health (OH) support or well-designed Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs). This was, however, heavily skewed towards large employers (86 per cent of large employers offer some form of OH provision while only 30 per cent of SMEs do).”
The report adds: “The common feedback on OH we heard was that it lacks independence and that OH advice misunderstands the working environment, resulting in reasonable adjustments that are generic or ill-suited to the context of the work.”
