Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Sickness absence management

Absence rates higher in the UK than other European countries

by Nic Paton 19 Nov 2013
by Nic Paton 19 Nov 2013

The UK lags behind key European rivals such as Poland, France and Romania when it comes to managing sickness absence, and an extra 60,000 people could be helped back into work in this country simply by making early interventions more accessible for those with musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), a thinktank has argued.

A report from the Fit for Work Europe Coalition – a group representing physicians, patient organisations, economists and researchers led by The Work Foundation – has concluded that the UK and Germany are Europe’s laggards on managing absence effectively.

Overall, an extra one million employees across Europe could be at work each day if early interventions were more widely accessible for MSDs, it calculated.

More than 35 million days are already being lost each year to sickness absence in the UK and, with many EU member states set to see 50% of their population diagnosed with an MSD by 2030, this was a growing problem politicians needed to address as a matter of urgency, it said. The report called on EU member states to coordinate action between government departments, employers and clinicians.

“Our analysis now shows that because access to early healthcare interventions for workers with MSDs are not being prioritised, thousands are taking unnecessarily long periods away from work, or even leaving work permanently, when tried and tested tactics could be helping to speed up their recovery and return to work,” Professor Stephen Bevan, founding president of the coalition, said.

Using data from a two-year trial of a successful early intervention clinic for people with MSDs in Madrid, Spain, the coalition has developed estimates of the effect of repeating its results across 12 EU member states where comparable data exists.

By assessing and treating 13,000 workers with MSDs after five days of sickness, the Madrid clinic succeeded in reducing temporary work absence by 39%.

“If these results were repeated across the whole of the EU, we estimate that up to one million workers would be available to work each day,” Bevan said.

“Even if the reduction in absence achieved was 25% rather than 39%, we estimate that in excess of 640,000 workers would be available for work each day.”

Dame Carol Black, former UK national director for health and work and co-president of the coalition, added: “In the UK, 300,000 people make long-term sickness absence claims each year. The results from the Spanish study reveal just how important early intervention is for people with MSDs.

“It shows that permanent work disability fell by 50%, while temporary work absence fell by 39% – a vast improvement.”

Nic Paton
Nic Paton

Nic Paton is consulting editor of OHW+. One of the country's foremost workplace health journalists, Nic has written for OHW+ and Occupational Health & Wellbeing since 2001, and edited the magazine from 2018.

previous post
Barclays takes top spot at Personnel Today Awards
next post
Employee resignations: Establishing the effective date of termination

1 comment

Avatar
Gary 9 Dec 2013 - 12:29 pm

What are the interventions that helped?

Comments are closed.

You may also like

CPD activities: supporting the health needs of university...

1 Aug 2022

Obesity costing economy and NHS billions each year

19 Jul 2022

Covid variants and end of furlough led to...

18 Jul 2022

‘Patchy’ mental health services failing ethnic minority communities

11 Jul 2022

Cost of living crisis fuelling stress, anxiety and...

11 Jul 2022

Global study highlights hypertension treatment failings

8 Jul 2022

NICE sets out new guideline on managing depression

8 Jul 2022

Half of employees struggle to switch off on...

8 Jul 2022

Unpicking the medicalisation of behaviour at work

6 Jul 2022

Hope for OH role after all in fit...

4 Jul 2022

  • 6 reasons why work-based learning is better than traditional training PROMOTED | A recent Fortune/Deloitte survey found that 71% of CEOs are anticipating that this year’s biggest business disrupter...Read more
  • Strengthening Scotland’s public services through virtual recruiting PROMOTED | This website is Scotland's go-to place for job seekers looking to apply for roles in public services...Read more
  • What’s next for L&D? Enter Alchemist… PROMOTED | It’s time to turn off the tedious and get ready for interactive and immersive learning experiences...Read more
  • Simple mistakes are blighting the onboarding experience PROMOTED | The onboarding of new hires is a company’s best chance...Read more

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2022

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2022 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+