Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department is taking to use occupational health to help reduce levels of economic inactivity.

Expert-led impartial advice, including occupational health, can help employers provide appropriate and timely work-based support to manage their employees’ health conditions, and also support business productivity.

Occupational health supports employers to maintain and promote health and wellbeing through assessments of fitness for work and advice about reasonable adjustments, work ability or return to work plans, as well as by signposting to treatment for specific conditions. Employers also have a choice about the type and level of Occupational Health service to provide for their employees.

The Government’s Occupational Health programme includes £1m of funding for Phase 1 and £1.5m for Phase 2 of an Innovation Fund which has focussed on increasing small medium enterprises (SME) access to and capacity in the occupational health sector, due for completion in March 2025. The fund has encouraged the development of new models of occupational health tailored to the self-employed and SMEs with a focus on better use of technology.

Further, the Occupational Health Workforce Expansion Funding Scheme (launched in July 2023), has funded registered doctors and nurses to undertake occupational health training courses and qualifications. To date over 200 doctors and nurses have undertaken training with exams taking place in May 2024.