Sickness Absence

Thursday 25th February 2010, One Great George Street, London, 09:30 - 14:00 (half day)

Managing Sickness and Absence in the Workplace: Improving Productivity Through Wellbeing at Work

“We have a moral and economic obligation to help people who have suffered ill health to get back to work as soon as possible. Unemployment and lost working days caused by ill health costs the economy £100 billion a year and we know that being in work can be good for your wellbeing.”

Andy Burnham MP, Secretary of State for Health, October 2009

Overview

Dame Carol Black’s review of the health of Britain’s working age population – 'Working for a Healthier Tomorrow’ (2008) - concluded that there is insufficient access to support for people in the early stages of sickness. In its response, the government has committed to sponsoring the Fit for Work Service Programme of Piloting across Great Britain and is making available central funding to ‘pump prime’ the development of locally developed FFWS models, and to evaluate a number of these until at least 2011.

The 'Fit for Work' Service Programme of Piloting, backed by £13 million, will test out how sickness absentees can be helped to recover and supported to get back to work more quickly than would otherwise be the case. They will test a range of different ways of providing support, to identify what works best.

Each pilot will test personalised, back-to-work support for people who are off sick.. The range of services within a pilot should go beyond just health care and join up local services, including:

Skills advice
Employment advice
Health and wellbeing services with a particular focus on vocational rehabilitation
Wider social support such as debt or housing advice
Conciliation to overcome escalated disputes between employees and employers

The Fit for Work Service Programme of Pilots is part of a package of measures announced by the government in response to Dame Carol Black's review of Britain's working age population. Also included were 'fit notes', a national centre for working age health and wellbeing and health, work and wellbeing coordinators.

Furthermore, more needs to be done to place the health and wellbeing of NHS staff, alongside quality, at the heart of how the health service operates, according to the latest findings of Dr. Steve Boorman’s Independent NHS Health and Wellbeing Review.

Occupational health expert Dr. Steve Boorman, who was asked by the Department of Health earlier this year to lead the review said: “NHS staff work incredibly hard often in difficult circumstances to ensure high quality health care is available to all at the point of need – and we can do more to support staff health and wellbeing.”

Agenda

09:30	Registration and Coffee
10:10	Chair’s Opening Remarks Charlotte Hall, Programme Manager - London Works for Better Health, London Health Commission (CONFIRMED)
10:15	Keynote: Working for A Healthier Tomorrow - Have we Made Progress? Review progress on the Government's response to her Review Professor Dame Carol Black, National Director, Health, Work and Well-being (CONFIRMED)
10:35	Fit for Work: Working for A Healthier Tomorrow Policy context Fit for Work Service: what works best? Fit Notes Public Sector as an exemplar Improving workplaces Graeme Henderson, Head of Health and Work, Health Improvement and Protection Directorate, Department of Health (CONFIRMED)
10:55	Policies and Procedures to manage absence and support attendance - the crucial role of line managers Getting the best from your employees Ensuring organisation wide engagement into health and wellbeing Measuring return on investment The model healthy workplace Jerry Gibson, London Director, Acas (CONFIRMED)
11:15	Coffee and Networking
11:35	NICE Guidance: Long-term Sickness Absence and Incapacity for Work NICE’s recommendations on managing long-term sickness absence and incapacity for work Pathway for managing long and short term sickness absence Detailed assessment Coordinating and delivering interventions and services Implementation tools Prof Mark B Gabbay MD FRCGP, Head of Division of Primary Care, University of Liverpool (CONFIRMED)
11:55	Case Study: Work Productivity Through Work Well being Health and well being - Not just duty of care and increasing productivity, it is the right thing to do Role of Wellbeing Champions Communications, priorities, information and people involvement Living Well, Working Well a long term aim - Being an Employer of Choice Gary Thorogood, Deputy Head of Health, Safety & Wellbeing, Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) (Winner of the silver Occupational Health and Safety Award 2009) (CONFIRMED)
12:15	Questions and Answers Session
13:00	Lunch and Networking
14:00	Close

*programme subject to change without notice

Exhibitors

Corpore

Warwick International Computing Systems

Audience

Delegates will include heads and directors of health divisions, human resource heads and directors, health and safety teams, absence managers, welfare and well-being teams, risk managers, heads of training, heads of operations, occupational health managers, contact centre managers and be drawn from public central government departments and agencies, local authorities, criminal justice, health and education sectors, insurance companies, legal practices and advocacy organisations, businesses and employers, academia, the third sector and the private sector.