Workplace health plan targets economic inactivity

The government has set out plans to build Britain’s first Workplace Health System as it seeks to reduce the number of people leaving employment because of illness and improve the connection between employers, health services, and employment support.

The proposals have been developed through the Keep Britain Working programme, co-chaired by Sir Charlie Mayfield, and are being tested with employers, unions, disabled people, service providers, and regional authorities.

Around 300,000 people with a health condition leave work each year, according to the Department for Work and Pensions. The number of working-age people outside employment because of ill health has increased by around 800,000 since 2019, while the government puts the wider annual economic cost at approximately £212bn.

The point at which support is provided can materially affect whether somebody returns. Government figures cited in the programme say a person absent for four to six weeks has a 96% chance of returning to work, while fewer than half return after being away for a year.

Mayfield said: “We’ve never had a Workplace Health System. That is why the same people appear on the welfare bill, on NHS waiting lists and in the productivity figures.”

The emerging model is intended to bring employers, the NHS, local authorities, and employment-support services into a more connected system. Eleven regional Vanguard areas and more than 200 organisations are already testing different approaches across the UK.

Liverpool City Region is working on return-to-work plans developed with employers, while Hull is testing a pooled model intended to give smaller businesses access to occupational health support at prices closer to those available to large employers. South Yorkshire is testing independent case workers who spend part of their time within businesses to help employees experiencing health problems.

A national employer standard is also being developed with the British Standards Institution. The work is intended to establish clearer expectations around workplace health and inclusion while examining how smaller organisations can access services through pooled purchasing and insurance arrangements.

Occupational health provision has traditionally been easier for large organisations to finance and administer. A large company can employ internal specialists or negotiate substantial provider contracts, while a smaller employer may have only occasional need for occupational-health support and considerably less purchasing leverage.

The programme therefore connects health policy with labour supply and productivity. Long-term sickness can remove experienced employees from workplaces, create recruitment costs, reduce household income, and increase pressure on health and welfare systems. Those effects become more pronounced when absence turns into permanent labour-market exit.

Employers are also being asked to improve their use of data. The programme says relatively few organisations can reliably track whether staff with health conditions remain in work or whether people return successfully after prolonged absence. An employer data project and work-and-health prototype are being developed to improve that information.

The Workplace Health System sits within a £3.5bn employment-support package. WorkWell has £259m of backing and is intended to support up to 250,000 people to stay in or return to employment, while Connect to Work is expected to reach 300,000 sick or disabled people. More than 1,000 full-time Pathways to Work advisers are already in place.

Testing will continue over the next year, including work with BSI on the proposed standard and further trials through the regional Vanguard network. The practical question is whether employers can intervene earlier without creating a system that is too expensive or administratively complex for smaller organisations to use.

Results from the regional trials will therefore be central to the next phase. A national system will have to show that coordinated support can improve retention and return-to-work outcomes while remaining accessible to businesses without large internal HR or occupational-health functions.