People will look back at 2008 as a significant turning point in terms of changing the health and safety culture of the UK comparable to 1974, when the Health and Safety at Work Act was introduced, said Dr Bill Gunnyeon, director of health, work and wellbeing at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Explaining the government’s response to Dame Carol Black’s review Improving health and work: changing lives, Gunnyeon said that most people can be helped to return to work or to stay at work if they develop illness or disability. He noted, however, that in the current economic climate it would be much more difficult to get them back into work if they drop out. “The challenge is not to create a huge number of people stranded on health-related benefits,” he observed.
“The working age population is quite dynamic,” he said. “There is huge movement between being in and off work. The challenge for us is to ensure that the flow from work is as small as possible and the flow of those off sick or on benefits is back in the direction of work.”
Gunnyeon revealed that one of the initiatives that came out of Carol Black’s review, the “fit note”, which outlines what people can do rather than what they cannot do, is at a relatively advanced stage and will almost definitely be introduced early next year in both Certificate and electronic format. He also said that health, work and wellbeing co-ordinators would be introduced at regional and local level and a national centre for working age health and wellbeing would be established to look at getting better data on the health of the working population.
The DWP also intends to introduce an additional initiative by testing an occupational helpline for SMEs designed to encourage them to improve health in the workplace, particularly mental health and wellbeing. The Department is also about to commission ‘Fit for Work’ pilots, plans to extend employment advisers in GP surgeries and is working with the MS society to help employers, healthcare professionals and individuals to develop guidance to improve work retention for people who develop chronic fluctuating conditions.
