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May/June 2023 issue

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Tax breaks for private medical treatment could lower sickness absence, says EEF

Open-access content Wednesday 15th June 2016
From the archive:  Just so you know, this article is more than 3 years old.

Private medical treatment tax breaks could lower sickness absence, says EEF

Health -- the key to productivity, which was completed by 306 manufacturing companies covering 61,705 employees, revealed that 41% of companies say that long-term sickness absence has increased over the last 24 months. This is consistent with EEF's 2015 survey which uncovered the largest increase in long-term sickness absence in five years.

According to EEF, tax breaks would encourage more employers to pay for private medical treatment for employees and ease some of the pressure on the National Health Service (NHS).

Terry Woolmer, head of health and safety policy at EEF, said: "Currently we have long-term absence on the increase and an under pressure NHS which is struggling to deal with the issue. Given this situation is only going to get worse with an ageing population, radical action is now required.

"Government must now use fiscal incentives to encourage employers to pay for private medical treatment and allow it to be offset in the same way as other business expenses. Not only would this help take the pressure off the NHS but it would allow a speedier return to work. This would be a win win for government, the employee and employers."

The survey found that, although 41% of manufacturers still rely exclusively on NHS treatment and only one in five currently pays for non-NHS treatment, 31% would pay for medical treatment if there was a benefit to the company. Some 60% would pay for employee medical treatments if the cost were to be offset against allowable business expenses.

The annual absence rate for manufacturers was 2.3%, or an average of 5.3 sickness absence days per employee per year. These figures have remained fairly constant for the last six years. Five per cent of the workforce covered in the survey was away from work for four weeks or more.

"If the 5% long-term sickness absence rate found in our survey is reflected across the whole sector [2.7 million employees], we can estimate that 135,000 employees are off work per annum because of long-term sickness absence," the survey says. "This means a minimum of 2.7 million working days, or at least 11,894 person years are lost to long-term sickness absence each year (based on 227 working days per year)."

The main causes of long-term sickness absence are back problems and musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), medical tests, investigation and surgery, and stress and mental health problems. In this year's survey companies of all sizes said MSDs was the most common cause, whereas last year's survey saw companies that employed more than 500 employees list stress and other mental ill health disorders as the most common reason.

EEF's survey also provided some "tentative" figures relating to the government's Fit for Work service, an initiative to help reduce levels of long-term sickness absence by tackling MSDs and mental ill health, which has been operating since July 2015, the report says.

Four-fifths (78%) of respondents are aware of the service, yet only 19% of employers said they would pay for medical treatments it recommends.

Progress has also been slow in terms of the fit note medical certificate, survey data has revealed. Introduced in April 2010, the fit note was designed to allow medical professionals the option of indicating that an employee may be fit for work if the employer meets certain criteria.

"The fit note is still not delivering on its key objective to return employees to work earlier. In addition, employers are still reporting that the quality of the advice given by GPs is poor," the survey says.

Only 13% of employers believe the fit note has enabled an earlier return to work (compared to 24% in 2010), while 43% said it is failing to get employees back to work earlier (35% in 2010).

The EEF survey was published in association with Jelf, an insurance broker and consultancy for healthcare and employment. Jelf's managing director of UK healthcare and group risk, Iain Laws, said: "Healthy employees can be up to three times as productive as those in poor health. They experience fewer motivational problems, are more resilient to change and are more likely to be engaged with the business priorities. It is essential that companies have systems in place with recognise this and which place employee health provision at their heart."

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Monday 27th June 2016
Words: Louis Wustemann Not only but alsoAlongside new occupational health (OH) referral procedures and stress risk assessments, Susan Gee has overseen the introduction of these initiatives at Yorkshire Water and its parent Kelda Group since 2013:
Open-access content

 BT engineer sustained broken back in 7 m fall

Tuesday 14th June 2016
In May 2011, David Spurgeon was working alone, fixing a telephone fault in the roof void of a block of flats in Tower Hamlets. He lost his balance and fell through the ceiling, landing on a concrete stairwell 7 m below. He broke his back and both ankles.  The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) investigated the incident and found management failures by BT, including inadequate planning of work taking place near fragile surfaces as well as checking that it was carried out safely.
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BT engineer David Spurgeon fell through a fragile ceiling tile | Image credit: HSE

 *UPDATE* BT engineer sustained broken back in 7 m fall

Friday 17th June 2016
As we reported earlier this week, David Spurgeon was in the roof void of a block of flats in Tower Hamlets, east London on 17 May 2011. He was fixing a reported telephone fault in a distribution point when he lost his balance and fell through the fragile ceiling tiles. He managed to hold himself suspended for a short while before dropping 7 m onto the concrete stairwell below.
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 Food waste disposal plant fined after workers overcome by toxic gases

Monday 20th June 2016
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 BT engineers' ladder falls may have followed electric shocks

Tuesday 31st May 2016
Teesside Crown Court heard how the two BT Openreach engineers were working at the company’s Darlington Automatic Telephone Exchange. One of the engineers was installing a cable in a ceiling level cable tray to the main distribution frame – which connects equipment to cables – on the ground floor.  The engineer was standing on a stepladder reaching up to the cable tray which ran beside the lighting system. He fell off the ladder and was taken to hospital with serious head and back injuries.
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 Arm amputation followed ‘horrific incident’ at recycling plant

Friday 27th May 2016
The Nick Brookes Recycling employee was working on an infeed conveyor which transfers waste brought by skip wagons onto a picking line. On 8 August 2013 he was dragged into the conveyor and his right arm had to be amputated up to his shoulder. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) told Chester Crown Court that the conveyor belt was in extremely poor condition, jammed frequently, and was not guarded. Workers were not sufficiently informed, trained or supervised.
Open-access content
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