Returning to work

Returning to work, working longer, working healthier in the NHS: a decision making framework to support line managers and staff

• Introduction
• Background
• How to use the checklist

Introduction

There are an ever-growing number of initiatives, policies and legislative changes in the workplace to support line managers and staff with returning to work and related issues.

As a line manager, attracting, recruiting and retaining staff and volunteers, or encouraging people to return to work at all stages of their career are key to providing high quality healthcare services. This needs to be done in a way that enables staff to work favourably to their individual requirements to get the best out of their work and to feel well within the work environment.

Equally, members of staff (or those returning to work or volunteers) may be faced with changes in their health or ability to work, or they may wish to change the way they work to suit their personal needs or plan for the future.

This decision-making framework has been developed to help to steer line managers and staff through the various decisions they may need to make around returning to work, working longer and working healthier in the NHS. It may help managers and staff to make informed decisions and ask the right questions about situations they face now and in the future relating to health, age and diversity needs.

This decision-making tool does not offer solutions, it provides a framework to help identify the critical questions that needs answering, and the range of potential options that can, in turn, inform a decision.

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Background

There are many reasons why the checklists in this framework can be useful, and many reasons why managers and staff will wish to consider the various issues raised here around age, chronic conditions and healthy workplaces. For example:

• legislation changes (for example age legislation)
• around one quarter of the 1.1 million non-medical staff in the NHS are aged over 50, and this will continue to increase
• there is the opportunity to retain scarce skills and experience
• the number of people with long term conditions. For example, research in Salford suggests that 22.8% of its population had a limiting long term condition. If this proportion were applied to the NHS then up to 300,000 NHS staff could have long term conditions of varying severity now and in the future
• there are a lot of self care and self management policies and initiatives, using a framework such as this will enable individual staff members to 'self care' and 'self manage' their conditions of work, where possible
• NHS organisations face many pressures. Managing sickness absence and enabling a healthy workplace contributes to efficiency and to lowering costs
• in 1993, 1.46 million people were claiming unemployment benefit, but the figure for people out of work and claiming long-term sickness and disability benefits was 2.7 million. The annual cost of this to employers is around £11 billion, from 6.5 million working days lost to work-related stress or depression, and one in seven adults off work for at least six months because of illness or injury (figures from People Management, April 2003).

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How to use the checklist

• The checklists are designed to prompt questions and ideas rather than to suggest immediate solutions. The Decision Making Framework consists of four checklists, two for use by employers and two for use by staff.

Employers

• Employers' checklist - fit for the present? can be used to raise a range of questions proactively when an issue arises.
• Employers' checklist - fit for the future? can be used raise a range of questions proactively.

Staff, people returning to work and volunteers

• The checklist called Staff checklist - fit for the present? can be used as an aide when considering the questions that need to be asked when an illness or other issue arises.
• The checklist called Staff checklist - fit for the future? can help when planning your future career and working life particularly in the later stages or as and when an issue arises such as illness or a long term condition

Each of the checklists has a set of questions under different scenarios, for example, for employers, 'when considering the older workforce' or for staff 'when considering myself as an older member of staff in the future'.

All the checklists begin with a set of questions around the organisation's values and principles, which set the context of the responses to the questions and challenges. These will vary between organisations.

The checklists can be amended and adapted locally as required, and over time you may find other useful questions to add to the list.

In addition to the checklists the framework includes a list of organisations which may be able to offer advice and support to you making decisions.

There is also a list of 'top tips' for employers around returning to work, working longer, working healthier in the NHS.

NHS Employers sponsored the development of this framework which was led by Jane Keep for NHS Partners and was co-developed with a range of stakeholders from the NHS, as well as trade unions, HR managers, line managers, occupational health professionals and voluntary organisations.