Joanne Hindle tells Angela Faherty about the New Beginnings campaign, and how standardisation will help the rehabilitation market develop
Ask any income protection (IP) provider the key issue facing the market at the moment and rehabilitation will undoubtedly be the reply. And for Joanne Hindle, corporate services director at UnumProvident, the answer is no different. Hindle is the brains behind the insurer's New Beginnings Symposium. It was while working as a public affairs consultant for the insurer that Hindle developed the idea to try and tackle the issue surrounding disability and work with the company's then chief executive.
Passionate
"Instead of sitting back and thinking things were a bit of a mess, we believed we should do something about it. So we designed a programme that took the issue of disability and work and examined why so many people with disabilities did not actually work at all," she says.
The annual event has now been running since 2001 and draws together Government, trade bodies and employers with the aim of bringing the issues surrounding rehabilitation and disability in the workplace to the forefront of industry debate.
To get the ball rolling, four authors were commissioned by UnumProvident to carry out independent research on the different aspects of disability and work. The insurer also produced a separate paper and all the findings were then presented in the form of the New Beginnings Symposium.
Hindle explains: "The initial research findings showed there were about one million people on Incapacity Benefit (IB) who wanted to work, so we decided we should set society some goals. That was, in 10 years, we should try and get a quarter of these people back to work."
With a goal of getting 250,000 IB claimants back to work by 2011, the forum is certainly a long-term initiative. However, Hindle admits that this is not a mandatory issue and stresses it will only work if everybody involved is passionate about moving rehabilitation forward.
"This is a coalition of the willing," Hindle says. "It isn't about pressuring people into getting involved. It is about inviting people out there who want to make it happen, the Government and the voluntary sector. It is the same issue we are all looking to address, so it is a case of let's see what difference we can make together."
Growing recognition
Hindle is confident that with an increased focus from employers and the Government on the issues surrounding disability and work, coupled with the extension of the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) in October 2004, the initiative should be moving well towards its target. More importantly however, it is the growing recognition of the need for tackling the issue that pleases Hindle most.
"One of the things the campaign has done," she says, "is really move the rehabilitation issue up a lot of people's agendas. I truly believe that underlying this issue is the fact that for many people, work is the best thing. People who have been at work and suddenly lose this tend to become very depressed. For most of us, work is a positive thing. It's social, it gives us status and more importantly, it gives us a reason to get up in the morning."
While the forum provides a platform for debating ways to implement change, Hindle acknowledges the need for a universal approach, rather than silo-driven forces working independently towards the same goal.
"There needs to be joined-up thinking. It is not just a medical issue. It is not just a public issue. It is about uniting on every single aspect," she says.
Early intervention and rehabilitation is fast becoming the mantra of the IP sector, but the industry is having to work hard to find ways to help employers address the issue. The main problem is many employers still fail to implement any methods for recording employee absenteeism.
"You would be surprised at the number of firms that don't know how many people are off sick, because they don't record the data," says Hindle. "And if you don't have the statistics, you cannot see any patterns and identify what the problem may be."
Hindle adds that addressing this issue is imperative if rehabilitation is to have an impact. "This can help us see whether we can stop a claim becoming a long-term claim. Once you have the record keeping and data in place, you can then begin to look at early intervention."
Getting claimants back to work at the soonest opportunity is top of the agenda for most insurers, but Hindle acknowledges that it is not easy. UnumProvident has an extensive in-house rehabilitation unit, but this is rare in the industry, with many insurers outsourcing the more complex rehabilitation cases.
Obstacles
"Most insurers have the problem the NHS has got, and that is that there are actually very few people out there trained to do this job."
While Hindle agrees the biggest challenge for the rehabilitation industry is awareness, one of the main obstacles to progress is resource. She adds that perhaps one of the reasons why discussions on rehabilitation are minimal at the moment, is because there are not enough professional rehabilitators.
Because of this, Hindle firmly believes that the next step in the rehabilitation process is the introduction of formal qualifications that will create more professionals and ultimately, greater awareness as more people take the examination.
"I think we are at a stage now where developing a qualification is a fairly key step. And if we don't take it, we are not going to make a lot more progress. We have to introduce some form of national qualification and an examining body that sets exams enabling people to be credited. That way, at least it will be at a set standard and employers and claimants will know what to look for if they need rehabilitation services," she says.
Looking ahead, Hindle adds that one of the initiatives the New Beginnings campaign is currently working on is related to the forthcoming DDA extension in October 2004. The plan is to set up a small team of people based around the UK who will go out to a number of small businesses over the autumn and winter and brief them on its implications.
"The Disability Discrimination Act is being extended to everybody in October and it cannot be ignored. But the problem remains that most businesses do not know where to get information on it or even that they need information to explain what adjustments have to be made," she says.
For Hindle, education is key in helping to understand the issues surrounding disability, work and rehabilitation. It won't be a sudden or easy process, but working together will certainly make the process a little smoother. "If we all agree to wanting to achieve the same outcome," she says, "then at least let's try to get things moving."
