Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the potential impact of occupational health services on improving access to employment for disabled people.

The Government recognises the important role that Occupational Health can play in supporting people to stay in work, preventing avoidable sickness absence and reducing health-related economic inactivity. A sustainable multidisciplinary occupational health workforce is essential to delivering these outcomes. The Occupational Health Workforce Expansion scheme was launched in July 2023 and provided funded occupational health training and examinations for doctors and nurses. Between 2023 and 2026, the scheme funded 218 courses and 222 examinations.

Overall, Occupational Health can help employers manage workplace health risks and provide advice on fitness for work, workplace adjustments, rehabilitation and return to work, and through these improve access to employment for disabled people. Both in-house and externally commissioned Occupational Health can be instrumental in supporting both individuals and employers achieve these aims. The Keep Britain Working programme is working with the OH sector to ensure employers are getting the support they need and examining how to make this support as affordable and accessible as possible.

More widely, the Keep Britain Working (KBW) Review established that the UK needs a new workplace health system – based on better, more supportive workplaces, more effective, workplace health support through employers, and greater transparency on employer outcomes to encourage benchmarking and innovation.

To deliver more effective workplace health support, KBW is developing a draft specification for this support that centres on coordination and case management. This is intended to support both employees and line managers to agree stay in work or return to work plans alongside providing practical advice and guidance, and early access to mental health and musculoskeletal support.

Since publication, we have been working with Vanguard employers and providers across different sizes and sectors, Disabled People's Organisations and people with lived experience to examine what constitutes effective workplace health provision, including occupational health support, ensuring the workplace health system supports more inclusive workplaces and better outcomes for disabled people and people with health conditions. This work is informing the development of employer-facing Workplace Health Provision and a Healthy Working Lifecycle Standard, helping to identify and spread good practice on prevention, staying in work and returning to work. The evidence gathered through the Vanguard Phase will help inform future guidance, support and wider reforms to improve work and health outcomes. Specialist occupational health advice will continue to play an important role as part of workplace health provision, where appropriate and needed to support employees to stay at work. Part of this work will be creating an affordable, accessible workplace health provision offer for employers of all sizes.

Additionally, in recognition of the vital role Occupational Health awareness can play in helping disabled people to thrive in work, the Department for Work and Pensions is taking forward a further funded round of Occupational Health training for line managers in small and medium-sized enterprises. The accredited training will help line managers build the confidence and capability to support employees with health conditions and disabilities, have effective workplace health conversations, support workplace adjustments and retention, and encourage earlier intervention where appropriate. This is particularly important for smaller employers that may not have dedicated Human Resources or Occupational Health support.