Big Interview: Fit for Work plan takes shape

FM: The service currently engages with people who are off for four weeks solidly. There is no mechanism in place for intermittent absence. Or someone might have recurring periods of absence. Or for those who might need a referral more than once a year. How do you see the service developing to meet the needs of those types of people?

LG: I approached it with Lord Freud, who is very keen on FFW. He has said publicly that what they want is to embed FFW with its current eligibility criteria.

Clearly people with fluctuating medical conditions who may never in their working life reach four weeks but have tons of sickness absence because of a disability, these are all in scope for future additions and considerations.

FM: I would describe FFW as vocational. Employers don't have to send employees through FFW, and employees don't have to share their return to work plan with their employer. Are there plans to make it mandatory?

LG: The whole service is based on consent. We wouldn't ever breach consent. But the way the service will be effective is if everybody has the same information: the key stakeholder, the GP, the employer and the employee.

So our case managers are trained in motivational interviewing and to actually challenge unhelpful views.

Although someone might start off by saying, No, I'm not sharing that with my employer, if you actually say, well, with some adjustments, your employer can do this, this and this, that will bring you back to work sooner.

Very often we are able to share most of the return to work plan. There are some things obviously that are deeply personal that there's no need for the employer to know: such as debt and relationship issues.

If it's anything to do with work, we would always encourage employees to share it, and emphasise the positives in sharing.

I think it is frustrating - we do see it as an issue for employers who refer and then consent is withheld and they get nothing back. And we are trying to change that with various mechanisms.

For instance, if you bought something from Amazon, you can track it. If you could do something like that for employers just so they know that it has happened but we can't share it; at the moment that negative message of having nothing there, is unhelpful.

We're encouraging employers to consider changing their HR policy to include referral to FFW and, of course, what they're going to do if they receive a fit note, or return to work plan instead of a fit note.

I think it's better to be proactive and to consider changing HR policy than suddenly one day someone rocks up with a return to work plan that you don't know what to do with.
 
FM: I recently wrote a news story where Jelf Employee Benefits said most employees it had surveyed still had not heard of the service, while others had heard of it but wanted better engagement. What are the further plans to get the messages out there?

LG: We do lots of speaking events and interviews, and as much selling of the service as possible. One of the challenges with SMEs is that there might only be two or three people in the business.

They are not even thinking about referring for occupational health advice. And then if they do refer, two years later they have forgotten about it again. There will be a continual need for publicity. We're working with DWP at the moment to get them to push it as well.

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