Occupational Health
Sickness Absence Management
Referrals for Sickness & Absence
Return-to-work Plans
Reasonable Adjustments Advice
Employee Capability Assessments
Looking to manage your employee sickness absence more effectively?
We can help.
Our Protect package provides you with all the tools and support you need to not only manage employee absence better but also reduce the chance of your employees going off sick in the first place.
A subscription-based, online service, it gives you easy and unlimited access to specialist clinical advice and support to help you:
- Understand the underlying health reasons behind your employees’ sickness absence and performance issues
- Take practical steps to support their recovery and help them get back into the workplace swiftly and safely after absence
- Introduce appropriate workplace adjustments to reduce the likelihood of future absence and enable employees to perform at the best and be as productive as possible.
A member of our friendly Medigold Health Protect team will get in touch (always human, never bots!)
When you proactively manage employee health and wellbeing you get a…
What is Sickness Absence Management and who is it for?
Sickness absence management is all about keeping your employees in work, safe and well and performing at their best so that your business can run smoothly. It is important for every organisation, no matter the size of your business or what industry sector you operate in.
Managing absence effectively involves:
- Identifying and addressing the causes of employee
absence and presenteeism due to illness or injury - Taking a proactive approach to managing employee health and wellbeing, to help prevent the risk of employees becoming unwell and going off sick.
- Where required, providing reactive support at an early stage to aid recovery and reduce absence spells
Why is managing employee sickness absence important for your small business?
Managing employee sickness absence is important for every organisation but especially for smaller and medium-sized companies, where the impact of an employee being out of the business tends to be felt much more acutely and cause much more disruption to your operations and productivity.
By managing both employee health and absence effectively, you can:
- Reduce the financial burden of arranging cover
- Reduce the duration of absence spells and sick pay costs
- Reduce presenteeism and the associated impact on productivity
- Minimise/Reduce disruption to service delivery and associated client/customer dissatisfaction
- Reduce the stress and burden on other team members tasked with picking up the slack
- Save money and boost profits
- Increase productivity and performance
- Boost employee morale and engagement
- Improve employee retention and keep valuable skills in your business
- Positively impact employee health and wellbeing
Why is Protect the perfect solution to help you manage sickness absence effectively?
We designed Medigold Health Protect specifically for small and medium-sized businesses like yours, to help you take a more holistic, less reactive approach to employee health and make it easier for you to manage sickness absence.
Instead of paying premium rates for one-off appointments, with Protect you benefit from a complete, affordable occupational health service that’s available whenever you need it and gives you unlimited access to:
- Specialist clinical guidance and practical advice on reasonable workplace adjustments and support to help your employees return to and remain in work safely after illness
- Employee screening and health assessments to help you proactively manage employee health and reduce the risk of absence
- Educational resources and interactive tools to help managers better support the health and wellbeing of their teams and empower all your employees to better look after their own physical and mental health.
Want to find out more?
The health and safety of our employees is a core value at Tensar. Signing up to Medigold Health Protect has given us the support and resources to help put the health, safety and wellbeing of our employees at the forefront of our priorities.
Jamie Thompson-Hoadley
HR Business Partner at Tensar
At West Burton Energy the health and wellbeing of our employees is extremely important to us. The service that Medigold Health Protect provides forms an integral part of our corporate wellbeing strategy and it’s reassuring from both a business and employee perspective to have such a great service in place.
Sam Beckett
HR Manager at West Burton Energy
Our specialist team can help!
Get in touch today by filling in the contact form below or give us a call on 0330 390 3370 to find out how we can support your business.
FAQs
What is occupational health?
At its most basic level, occupational health (OH) is about the inter-relationship between health and work and how each affects the other. Occupational health service providers help companies to look after their people from recruitment right through to retirement. They provide independent, impartial advice and support to employers to help them reduce health and safety risks within their organisation, prevent and manage ill health, injury and absence, and protect and enhance the health and wellbeing of their employees through education and health promotion activities.
While occupational health can incorporate therapeutic and preventative care (for example, counselling services, physiotherapy and health screening), it is not a primary care service and OH practitioners cannot diagnose illness or prescribe or administer medical treatment.
OH clinicians are also not able to make decisions for employers. They act in an advisory capacity, aiming to equip employers and managers with the information they need to be able to make informed decisions about how to most effectively support the health of their employees while remaining compliant with their legal and statutory obligations.
Find our more about our services…
Why is occupational health important?
By law, employers have a duty of care to ensure the health and safety of their employees and protect them, as far as possible, from any risks to their wellbeing arising from the work that they do or the environment that they work in. But aside from the legal obligations and it simply being the right thing to do, looking after the health of your workforce can deliver invaluable benefits for your organisation.
In an ever more competitive labour market where people are increasingly demanding more from their employers, demonstrating that you value your staff and are committed to investing in their wellbeing can help to boost your company’s reputation, marking you out as an employer of choice and helping you to attract and retain the best talent.
Taking care of your people also just makes good business sense, particularly for SMEs whose workers tend to perform multiple functions and who will therefore feel the impact of any employee absence more acutely than larger organisations with more resources to draw on. Employees who are fit, healthy and well and who are provided with the right support are less likely to go off sick, are able to perform better and are more motivated to help your business succeed. Together, this can help you to reduce absence costs, drive engagement and productivity and boost your bottom line.
What is Medigold Health Protect?
Medigold Health Protect is our all-inclusive package, designed to support small and medium sized businesses, whether you have 3 or over 300 employees, we are confident that this model will be the most proactive and affordable occupational health service available for you.
As a Medigold Health Protect customer, you can take advantage of all these services, available on an unlimited basis, for the price of one
annual fixed fee based on your headcount.
- Sickness absence referrals
- New starter medical questionnaires and consultations
- Senior clinical guidance and support for managers and key contacts
- Manager tools and educational webinars and workshops
- Accessible online portal for managers and employees
- Licences for the only NHS-approved mental health app, Thrive, for all employees
- App-based CBT and in-app therapy
- Wellbeing and mental health webinars for employees
- Health resource library
- Dedicated Client Relationship Manager and interactive customer journey
What is a New Starter Health Screen?
Sometimes referred to as preplacement, pre-employment or post-offer health screening, new starter health screening offers a quick and efficient means of ensuring that newly recruited employees are medically fit to fulfil the duties and responsibilities of the role they have been offered and that the work they will be doing will not have an adverse effect on their health. It can also help employers to make reasonable adjustments as required by the Equality Act 2010.
The screening process – which involves the candidate completing an online health questionnaire that is then reviewed by an occupational health clinician – is designed to facilitate open conversations between employees and their new employer, to ensure that any disabilities, pre-existing or historic health conditions or other health risks are taken into consideration and that any required support or adjustments are in place from the outset. It is also a great tool for helping to prevent future sickness absence as it ensures management are made aware of often otherwise unnoticeable health conditions, which may change unexpectedly and result in absence issues. This means that they can better support employees to manage their conditions proactively and avoid the likelihood of problems developing further down the line.
New starter health screens should be completed after an offer of employment has been made but before the candidate commences their new role.
What is a Management Referral?
Sometimes referred to as a sickness absence management referral, occupational health referral or occupational health assessment, a management referral is when an employer refers an employee to an occupational health service for an assessment, usually following a period of ill health or sickness absence or because an existing health condition has started to impact on their performance or attendance at work.
Management referral assessments are undertaken by either an Occupational Health Advisor (OHA) or an Occupational Health Physician (OHP) and can be conducted remotely (via telephone or video consultation) or face to face.
During the consultation, the clinician will discuss the information contained in the referral with the employee and ask them questions about their medical history, job role and how their current health issues are impacting on them at work. Following the assessment, they will produce a report to the employer outlining any underlying health issues or other factors at play and providing advice and recommendations on how they can support the employee safely back to work and full performance, so that they can continue making an effective contribution to the workplace. These recommendations may include implementing reasonable adjustments, such as making changes to shift patterns or working hours, arranging alternative duties, or providing additional support or assistive equipment.
Occupational Health is important as employees are instrumental in the output and success of a business. Sickness management ultimately helps you to reduce costs for your business as employees feel more supported, more engaged, are less likely to need to take time off due to sickness and more able to perform effectively at work.
