The vanguard phase of the Keep Britain Working review is moving at a “strong” pace, with group income protection, private medical insurance and vocational rehabilitation being discussed ahead of the release of best practice guidelines at the end of the year.
Vanguard phase
In response to the publication of Sir Charlie Mayfield’s review last November, the government announced it was partnering with employers to reshape how health issues and disabilities are managed in the workplace with the launch of employer-led Vanguards.
Strong pace
Speaking at the Protection Distributor’s Group 10th anniversary celebration at Legal & General’s offices in London last week, L&G’s claims and clinical director Vanessa Sallows, a participant in the vanguard phase (pictured), revealed this phase of the project was moving at a strong pace.
Topics being discussed include creating strong leadership and compassionate cultures, effective practices, good work design, early conversations, regular engagement and timely appropriate support.
But shared responsibility for getting people back into work is also being discussed through setting clear expectations and accountability from the employer, employee and return to work providers.
Work has also focused on developing a healthy working lifecycle focusing on prevention, staying in work, returning to work and disability inclusion.
Whole workplace health cycle
Elaborating on this work, Sallows explained this has focused on the whole cycle.
“This looks at the whole cycle for that workplace health provision with the employer, the employee, what that workplace health provision might look like and then using your NHS, primary care, but also PMI where it’s appropriate to do so and external specialists in this field,” Sallows said.
GIP providers on board
And group income protection providers are very much part of the process, Sallows added.
“So how have we been shaping the model? The workplace health provision piece has been carried out very much like we have with the employer side.
“It’s more than 40 public and private providers. There’s been a number of group income protection providers, so group risk providers have been involved in those discussions across all of the different work streams.
“They’ve been looking at the access for employers and employees, really looking at prevention, digitally enabled support.
“All of this is what we’ve been doing in the group risk industry for over 25 years now and actually more broadly, recently reading that into the individual protection market so that we have really been looking at how we can use that vocational rehabilitation.”
Working with the ABI
Sallows added that the Association of British Insurers (ABI) has also been holding joint sessions with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Keep Britain Working team, with roundtables discussing prevention having already taken place ahead of further roundtables on intervention and returning to work to come.
Best practice guidelines
And a key objective of the vanguard’s work is that best practice guidelines work for all sizes of employers, Sallows said.
“So we’re actually creating principles that work for employers of all sizes,” she continued.
“This has been a key objective of Sir Charlie and the Keep Britain Working team in so far it has to be accessible and scalable and available to all employers of all sizes.”
She added that vanguards are now three quarters of the way through the first year of the three-year vanguard phase.
“We intend to have best practice guidelines published by the end of this year and that was something Sir Charlie made clear to all of us,” she said.