Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to provide support for SMEs for occupational health programmes.

The Government is committed to supporting people with their employment journey. Expert-led impartial advice, and interventions such as occupational health, can help employers provide appropriate and timely work-based support to manage their employees’ health conditions, and also support business productivity.

The Joint Work and Health Directorate’s Occupational Health reform programme has focused on increasing access and uptake of occupational health. This has included a £1m fund for innovation that focussed on increasing access to and capacity in Occupation Health. The fund has encouraged the development of new models of Occupational Health tailored to the self-employed and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with a better use of technology. Phase 1 was launched in January 2023 and projects finished January 24. Phase 2 launched in December 2023 with a further a £1.5m fund. Projects went live 1 April 2024 and completed in March 2025.

The Department for Work and Pensions additionally offers support to SMEs through a number of programmes, such as the Disability Confident Scheme, which provides employers with the knowledge, skills and confidence to employ those with a disability or health condition and a digital information service for (Support with Employee Health and Disability), which provides tailored guidance on supporting employees in common workplace scenarios involving health and disability.

Employers, including SMEs, can also refer to WorkWell pilots which went live from October 2024 in 15 areas across England. Available to people both in and out of work, it provides low intensity holistic support for health-related barriers to employment, and a single joined up gateway to existing local work and health service provision.

Upon publication of our Get Britain Working White Paper, the Secretaries of State for Work and Pensions and Business and Trade asked Sir Charlie Mayfield to lead an independent Keep Britain Working Review as a part of the plan to Get Britain Working again.

In recognition of the vital role of businesses of all sizes, Sir Charlie Mayfield is considering recommendations to support and enable employers to promote healthy and inclusive workplaces, support more people to stay in or return to work from periods of sickness absence, and recruit and retain more disabled people and people with health conditions.