More than 250 of Britain’s biggest employers, including British Airways, Tesco and Royal Mail, have signed up to a new taskforce led by Sir Charlie Mayfield aimed at stemming the flow of workers dropping out of the labour market through ill-health, a problem officially costed at £212bn a year.
The former John Lewis chairman, whose Keep Britain Working review laid bare the scale of Britain’s sickness problem last year, said tackling unemployment linked to long-term illness would unlock economic growth that is “hiding in plain sight”.
His Get Britain Working taskforce, which also counts Sainsbury’s, EDF Energy, Currys and several government departments among its members, has two aims: preventing people falling out of work because of ill-health in the first place, and encouraging those already signed off to return.
Each of the companies involved will track sickness absence, return-to-work outcomes and disability participation, data the government says will make workplace health performance visible for the first time. Ten mayoral authorities, including London and Manchester, have also agreed to take part.
The intervention comes with the human cost of the problem all too apparent. According to the Office for National Statistics, an estimated 148.8 million working days were lost to sickness or injury last year, while UK sick days have hit a 15-year high, with mental ill-health now the leading cause of long-term absence.
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