The Fit for Work Service

The government’s Fit for Work Service went “live” in December 2014. There is a website: http://fitforwork.org for online and telephone advice. The rest of the service is being phased in gradually over the coming months.

The key promised elements of the Fit for Work Service are:

• free expert and impartial work-related health advice via the website and over the phone for all — targeting employers, employees and GPs; and

• referral to an occupational health professional for employees off sick or likely to be off sick for four weeks or more.

Although the new scheme is not compulsory, “referral should be the default option, unless individuals meet the criteria for when referral may be inappropriate”, says the DWP. Reasons for non-referral will be “limited and defined”. The main referral route will be via GPs, but employers will be able to refer employees if the GP has not done so after four weeks of sickness absence.

Government guidance says all referrals must be based on the employee’s informed consent. In practice, non-cooperation with this new system, once fully rolled out, will inevitably increase the likelihood of a fair dismissal for capability (sickness) — see Chapter 10, page 289.

Following the assessment, workers are to be given a “return to work plan” with recommendations to help them get back to work more quickly, and information on accessing appropriate “interventions”. Fit for Work is intended to complement rather than replace existing health provision.

There is to be a tax exemption of up to £500 a year per worker on medical treatments recommended by Fit for Work or an employer-arranged occupational health service.

The TUC has welcomed any measure that could help employees return to work after illness or injury but believes the new scheme is too limited. It should be part of the NHS and should place a much greater focus on learning lessons and prevention. Care must also be taken, says the TUC, to avoid people being forced back to work before they are well enough.

In England, the new system is to be delivered by private sector firm Health Management Limited, a division of US health and “human services” giant Maximus Inc. Critics are concerned at the range of employment-related benefits, job schemes and occupational health roles now outsourced to Maximus, already a provider of the government’s Work Programme. In Scotland, Fit for Work is to be delivered by the Scottish government.