The recently published Keep Britain Working review highlights the UK’s growing economic inactivity crisis, driven largely by ill-health and the barriers that prevent disabled people from accessing and staying in work.
More than one in five working-age people are now out of work and not actively seeking employment, holding back growth, affecting livelihoods and costing the UK billions in lost output and welfare payments.
The review estimates that if the UK employment rate increased to 80%, approximately two million people would be in work, boosting the economy and reducing pressure on public finances. However, around 800,000 more people are out of work due to health problems now than in 2019. This number could rise to 1.4 million by 2030 without action.
In an analysis of the review, legal firm Dentons noted that there is a deteriorating relationship between work and health. People are living longer but becoming ill earlier and more people than ever are in work with work-limiting health conditions or disabilities.
Disabled people remain significantly under-represented in the labour market. Unless this disparity is addressed, the gap between those who can work and those who cannot will widen further.
To address these issues, the report recommended three major reforms:
- Driving adoption with evidence and incentives: A new Workplace Health Intelligence Unit (WHIU) should aggregate and analyse data to guide continuous improvement and provide leadership across the new system. This would support certification of the Healthy Working Lifecycle standard and provide the evidence base for targeted financial, operational, legal and cultural incentives to encourage wider adoption.
- Healthy Working Lifecycle standard: Employers and providers should develop a framework to help employers better manage employee health, disability and inclusion. The review suggests developing it into a certified standard, which would become the basis for general adoption of a common, outcome-based philosophy around work, health and disability across the UK.
- Better workplace health provision: Providers and practitioners should develop affordable and effective support for employers and employees to deliver the Healthy Working Lifecycle. The starting point would be new “stay in work” and “return to work” plans within the lifecycle and improving faster access to support.
“Poor workplace health has become a major and costly issue for employers. The total annual cost is estimated at around £85 billion across the economy, through sickness absence, staff turnover and reduced productivity,” Dentons said.
“Each day of sickness absence costs an employer roughly £120 in lost profit. With around 150 million working days lost every year to sickness absence, the disruption to operations and capacity is significant. The CIPD has reported that sickness absence is now at its highest level in 15 years and approximately 50% higher than in 2019.”
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