Some will recall that the Health and Work Service (HWS) was originally intended to be a mandatory scheme.
And in January 2013 the Government’s own response paper, Fitness for Work, stated:
“At the core of the service is the requirement that GPs will refer those patients who have been on sick leave for four weeks, unless there are very clear and well-defined reasons for not doing so.â€
The key word in the above sentence being “requirement”.
Yet last Autumn, through some (not quite official) announcements, it became clear that the requirement for GP’s to make the referrals had been removed.
Such a U-turn was always a bad idea. If the service is to be effective it will be essential that the vast majority of absences are assessed at an early stage. Removing an official requirement to achieve this risks a poor start for the HWS. And as any athlete will tell you, a poor start can ruin the final result.
So with this in mind, I speculated in our November events that some form of mandate was likely to be revisited. And given the reluctance of Government to compel GP’s to make such referrals, I suggested that this duty may well end up as another responsibility of employers.
Which takes us to the reported comments of Lord Freud yesterday which can be viewed here: http://goo.gl/VapvP8
Whilst this states that the service will be starting as a voluntary one, it’s more than interesting that the idea of an employer duty is already clearly present. I would not be at all surprised to see this take form over the next 24 months. It’s a subject that I will return to at our forthcoming events and on this blog no doubt.
Best regards
Steve
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