Britain is waiting until people are too sick to work before giving them the support that could keep them in employment, SOM has warned, stating that the delayed use of occupational health services is helping create a growing “sickness economy”, with ill health increasingly determining who can enter work, who stays in it and who falls out altogether.
Nearly 2.8 million working-age people are now economically inactive primarily because of long-term sickness. Almost one million 16 to 24-year-olds are not in education, employment or training, while ill health is becoming an increasingly important reason young people are detached from the labour market.
But new analysis highlighted by SOM shows just how quickly the window to keep somebody in work can close.
Among employees referred to occupational health while they were still working, 91% remained in employment a month later. For those referred after only one to two months of sickness absence, that figure was just 45%. After six months away from work, it fell to 27%.
SOM says these stark figures should trigger a fundamental rethink of Britain's approach to sickness and work: employers must intervene before somebody falls out of employment, rather than trying to reconnect them months later.
Professor Neil Greenberg, SOM President, said:
“Britain is missing out on keeping people at work through the use of effective occupational health expertise. Instead, employers all too often only ask for expert advice once workers are too sick to work by which time it is often very challenging to get them back to work. We need to get much better at stopping them from reaching that point in the first place.
“The numbers show how quickly the door can close. Get somebody occupational health support while they are still working, and nine in ten remain in employment. Wait until they have been away for a month or two, and that figure halves.
“Britain has slid into a sickness economy - not because people do not want to work, and not because employers do not care, but because, too often, the right support only arrives after someone has already fallen through the cracks.
“We have nearly three million people out of the labour market because of long-term sickness and almost one million young people outside education, employment or training. The nation cannot afford to keep treating health and work as two separate problems. Doing so is clearly an own goal.
“Occupational health is the bridge between the clinic and the workplace. It can identify what somebody needs to keep working before a few difficult weeks become months, or even years, outside the labour market.”
Yet only 52% of UK workers currently have access to occupational health through their job, despite 83% saying they would accept a review by occupational health if they were unwell.
SOM is calling for occupational health to become a central part of Britain's response to economic inactivity. What is needed is earlier referrals, wider employer access and urgent investment in the occupational health workforce.
The warning comes during Occupational Health Awareness Week, which this year runs from 21 to 27 September. Find out more here.