Are you FIT FOR WORK?! Well by the autumn you’ll be able to have a free occupational heath assessment to decide this for you!
The Government funded Fit For Work (FFW) initiative aims to provide free information support and guidance to employers and employees as well helping GPs navigate the tricky waters of sickness absence from work.
In addition the service will provide free occupational health assessments once employees have been absent for 4 weeks. It is likely in most cases that GPs will refer employees to the occ health service but it seems employers will be able to make referrals directly too.
With sickness absence costing an estimated £9billion a year, we hope this a great move to help support people back to work effectively. There have of course been fears that people might be pushed back to work too soon but we’d like to think that a sensible occ health assessment will prevent this from happening and will enable people to return at the right time in a way that supports heath & well ben, whilst giving employers confidence they are handling things correctly.