New plan for Britain’s first Workplace Health System

In his latest update, Sir Charlie Mayfield sets out the work being done with employers, providers and those with lived experience to deliver Britain’s first Workplace Health System. 

Around 300,000 people with a health condition leave work every year.

But much of this is preventable. Someone absent for four to six weeks has a 96 percent chance of returning. After a year, fewer than half do. 

Since 2019, the number of working-age people out of work due to ill health has risen by 800,000, with a total cost to the economy of around £212 billion a year.

The new plan aims to build better, more inclusive workplaces and better workplace health provision to prevent ill health conditions from escalating and to support people in work with health conditions or disabilities, to achieve more successful returns after absences from work.

It brings together employers, the NHS, local authorities and other support services to ensure people don’t fall out of work unnecessarily and companies have better data on workplace health and inclusion to drive change.

Eleven regional Vanguards, including nine Mayoral Strategic Authorities, Cornwall Council, Hull City Council and Worcestershire City Council, and more than 200 Vanguard organisations are already building and testing the new system with employers, unions and disabled people across all four nations of the UK.

Sir Charlie Mayfield, author of the Keep Britain Working Review and Co-Chair of the Keep Britain Working programme, said: