Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure the UK's obligations under the International Labour Organization Convention on Occupational Health Services are met.

As a founding member of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the UK is committed to our obligations to the organisation and continues to be actively engaged in its work.

The Government’s Occupational Health (OH) reform programme is focused on increasing private market coverage of employer led OH to help businesses support disabled employees and those with health conditions stay in, succeed in, and return to work.

This programme of work includes the OH subsidy pilot for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and the £1m innovation fund launched in January 2023 which aim to increase access to and capacity in OH. The Occupational Health Workforce Expansion Funding Scheme also launched in July 2023 and funds doctors and nurses to undertake Occupational Health training courses and qualifications.

In the summer 2023, to better support employee health, the Government consulted on ways to increase employer uptake of OH services. The Government’s response to the Occupational Health: Working Better consultation was published following the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement on 22 November 2023. This outlined plans to imminently set up an expert task and finish group to support the development of a voluntary minimum framework for quality OH provision which employers could adopt to help improve employee health at work.

The response also explored options for new voluntary national workplace health and disability standards; a potential new SME group purchasing framework supported by a digital marketplace; and using the learning, including from our existing Workforce Expansion scheme, to consider a long-term strategic OH workforce approach to a multidisciplinary work and health workforce for businesses and providers to improve support for their employees.