HSE publishes help to support workers with long-term health conditions and disabled workers

18 Nov 2022

The HSE has published new principles and guidance to support businesses to create an inclusive approach to workplace health. Employers can use its seven simple principles to create an enabling workplace culture, where disabled workers and workers with long-term health conditions feel valued and thrive.

The new principles help employers to:

Create a supportive and enabling workplace;
Take an inclusive approach to workplace health;
Understand the work barriers that impact on workers;
Make suitable workplace adjustments or modifications;
Develop skills, knowledge and understanding;
Use effective and accessible communication; and
Support sickness absence and return to work.

Inclusion is where people’s differences are valued and used to enable everyone to thrive at work. Although inclusion and diversity often go hand in hand, inclusion is about allowing everyone at work to contribute and feel they have an important role to play within the organisation. Inclusion is what’s needed to create a workplace where all employees are empowered to thrive. In an inclusive organisation, everyone is valued for their individual contribution and no one has to conform. They feel that they belong regardless of their background, identity or circumstances.

The HSE has developed the guidance to help support Health is Everybody’s Business, the government’s commitment to better support the lives of disabled people. Working closely with disability charities, unions and business representatives, the principles and guidance aim to help businesses support, retain and develop talent.

Sarah Albon, Chief Executive of HSE, said:

“The aim of this guidance is to provide clarity to employers about what they should be doing to support their staff. This can be a sensitive, complex area so we want to give employers confidence to act. We have to make the workplace better for disabled people and those with long-term health conditions. Not only is that the right thing to do but doing so will also bring big economic benefits at a time when we have high employment and firms are struggling to find staff.”

Mims Davies MP, Minister for Social Mobility, Youth and Progression, said:

“We want to grow our economy and that means we need more of us to be productive and economically active. We cannot afford to have people who have skills, experience and talent feeling left behind, and even worse shut out of the workplace because they have a disability or health condition. This key guidance from HSE and other work across government is part of our plan to support employment, cut ill-health related job loss and make sure employers have the teams they need to grow, and their employees are able to progress in work and truly thrive.”

Kamran Mallick, Chief Executive at Disability Rights UK, said:

“We welcome this new guidance to support businesses to do things differently and remove the barriers that stop disabled people from flourishing in work. Keeping disabled talent in your business is good business. The lived experience of disabled people is an asset, and by making small changes everyone benefits through inclusive cultures. The guidance will help employers retain talent at a time when many businesses are struggling to fill vacancies. For workers, the guidance will help them thrive and perform at their best in the workplace. And we know staying in work can help individuals on many levels, such as giving them financial independence and providing a sense of purpose and wellbeing.”

An estimated 149.3 million working days were lost because of sickness or injury in the UK in 2021, equivalent to 4.6 days per worker. Cutting this number will help grow productivity in the UK.

The guidance is aimed at small-to-medium sized businesses, which employ 61% of all UK employees. The Federation of Small Businesses found 51% of small businesses have employed a disabled person or someone with a health condition in the last three years.

The guidance helps workers understand what they might expect from, and should discuss with, their employers while makes it clear how employers can help their staff. Among the recommendations is making sure managers and workers feel confident talking about health and disability, and that any requests for changes to working patterns or modifications in the workplace are dealt with quickly.

The guidance focuses on early and supportive action that employers should take, outlines employers’ responsibilities, and preventative steps they can take to help people stay in work and be a productive team member.

International Workplace’s latest IOSH course – Managing Occupational Health and Wellbeing – focuses on the health in health and safety and provides an in-depth look at how managers can ensure the wellbeing of their staff, regardless of whether H&S is part of their remit.

It suits:

The busy HR director, implementing company-wide wellbeing initiatives.
The line manager, covering absences in his team.
The concerned team leader, worried about her colleagues’ mental health.
The occupational health practitioner, seeing a spike in musculoskeletal disorders since employees started working from home.

The course covers:

Ergonomics, demographics and types of working.
Giving employees the knowledge and skills to identify wellbeing issues, and to act on them.
Work-related health issues – such as how to deal with employees living with cancer, long-term diseases, mobility issues and poor mental health.
Understanding that an employer’s duty of care extends beyond health and safety, to employee wellbeing.