Latest from Health Work and Wellbeing

Since the general election, the Health Work and Wellbeing (HWWB) team have been pretty quiet about their future plans and objectives. Remember it is made up of representation from DWP, DoH, HSE, Scottish Government and The Welsh Assembly. They have recently published a report outlining baseline indicators on health and wellbeing reflected in surveys of both employees and employers. I don’t know who they surveyed, but some of the responses indicate that their messages are not hitting home. 

Only 32% of employees surveyed said that there was stress management support or advice available in their organisation.

52% of employeees said that their employer did not take any steps to help employees with five or more days of continuous absence back to work.

Even worse, 67% of employers admitted to not providing their employees with any measures to help them back.

Only 10% of employers had heard of the Business Health Check Tool. Only 5% had heard of their Regional Health and Wellbeing co-ordinator. Both initiatives from HWWB in the past year.

I don’t want to paint too negative a picture and I suggest that you read the report for all the survey results. But what I would say is that there is nothing in this document to tell us what HWWB are going to do to improve the situation, nor do they tell us whether the same indicators will be used to identify future trends or measure improvements by results.

I do have a sense that they felt obliged to get something out to show that they are still with us.