Why is occupational health important?
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) estimated at that in 2009/10, 2.1 million working age adults in Britain were suffering with an illness which they believed was caused or made worse by work. This contributed to almost 30 million working days lost due to work-ascribed ill-health or injury.
Research from the CIPD suggests that 3.3% of working time is lost through sickness absence every year, with an average of 7.4 working days per employee per year, costing £692 per employee every year.
This can take the form of recurrent short-term sickness absence, long-term sickness absence and can result in reduced productivity and inefficiencies.
Occupational health support can provide practical recommendations, as matters pertaining to employee health are often sensitive and can be difficult to understand. This allows companies to manage sickness absence with the benefit of medical information being provided in this way.
There has been significant growth of legislation over the last 10-20 years, much of it emanating from the European Union with health and safety directives, government initiatives from the Department of Work and Pensions, the Equality Act 2010, Human Right Act, Working Time Directive, pension and rehabilitation initiatives.
The CIPD (the professional body for Human Resources and Personnel Management) published an annual survey on sickness absence which contains a wealth of useful and interesting information and can be found here. The survey consistently finds occupational health assessments are the best method of reducing sickness absence. Infinity Occupational Health is an occupational health company which can arrange occupational health assessments across the UK to help meet the needs of your business.
The ways we can help are outlines in our page on occupational health services.