The UK wants workers to check their own health on their phones
Key Points
- Keep Britain Working is testing a seven-minute phone-based Work and Health Toolkit
- The check scores wellbeing and work ability and points workers to NHS support
- Employers see only anonymised, combined results and never individual answers
- The University of Liverpool is testing public trust in the toolkit's data and AI uses
- Trials with Vanguard employers will follow the citizens' panels
Keep Britain Working (KBW) is testing a seven-minute phone check that scores workers’ wellbeing and ability to work.
The government-backed programme set out the Work and Health Toolkit in its latest report, Keep Britain Working: A National Growth Opportunity, published in September 2026.
KBW built an early prototype of the toolkit after a six-week sprint with the employers and health providers it calls Vanguards.
The University of Liverpool’s Civic Health Innovation Labs is developing the toolkit with KBW. The labs are also running citizens’ panels to test whether the public will trust the toolkit and the data and AI uses linked to it.
How the check works
Workers would complete the check on their phones and see their results straight away. The report sets out three principles for the toolkit:
- The worker is the first beneficiary and gets help understanding their own health, wellbeing and work ability
- Responses stay private by default, and employers never see any individual answers
- Every question must have a legitimate use and a clear route to action
Employers would receive only anonymised, combined results from groups above a minimum size. Workers can choose to share their own summary with a clinician or their employer outside the toolkit.
The report used a composite example of a 26-year-old worker at a 4,000-person employer.
Her employer offers the check eight weeks after she joins and again at the two-year point.
She completes the first check on her phone in seven minutes. Her results page, which only she can see, flags low wellbeing and work ability scores in plain language without a diagnostic label.
The page points her to NHS Talking Therapies, which she can refer herself to without telling anyone at work.
Three months later, her employer sees that wellbeing scores in her division sit below the rest of the business and the sector benchmark. The results arrive with suggested evidence-based actions, and the senior team changes workload and shift design in that division.
Why KBW wants it
KBW said that employers currently discover most health problems only when a fit note arrives.
About 2.8 million people in the UK are out of the workforce because of ill health or disability, up around 800,000 since 2019. KBW cited an estimate that puts the cost to the economy at £212 billion a year, close to 7% of GDP.
Someone off sick for four to six weeks has a 96% chance of returning to work, according to the report. A person who leaves the workforce for health reasons has a 3.8% chance of working again within a year.
What comes next
KBW plans to test the toolkit with selected Vanguard employers after the Liverpool panels. The report named two open questions for the trial. The first is whether enough people will complete the check, particularly those who need help most. The second is whether the check gives workers enough value to justify their time.
A separate employer data project starts this autumn to compare sickness absence and retention between organisations. KBW also wants a new Workplace Health Intelligence Unit to collect combined data and send confidential benchmarks back to employers.
KBW will publish a plan for rolling out the wider system ahead of the 2027 Spending Review.
