The Trades Union Congress (TUC) has recognised the role income protection insurance and rehabilitation can play in helping sick or disabled employees back to work.
Speaking at a Swiss Life fringe meeting at the Labour Party Conference, Owen Tudor, senior policy officer at the TUC, said: "The insurance industry has an enormous opportunity to help small businesses with absence problems."
But he said that businesses were often sceptical of the role rehabilitation can play. "The figures are often so alarmingly good that businesses do not believe them." He said that intervention from the employer to arrange a private course of rehabilitation can be much less costly than the employee's absence. "Businesses can pay £300 or so on physiotherapy rather than their staff having two months off," he said.
John Ritchie, partnering manager at Swiss Life, said that this form of intervention is essential if the employee is to make a successful return to work. "It is astounding how readily absent employees lose touch with the workplace - people are being wasted, and this is an issue for management, trade unions and insurers."
Dr Ian Peters, deputy director general at the British Chambers of Commerce, added that there was a strong economic argument for businesses to manage their absence. He said: "Where there are costs to businesses through lost time and lost productivity then it has to be in their best interest. If illness is costing their business they must take action."
Peters said that the impact of absence is much more severe in smaller businesses. "If the Government wishes business to play a bigger role in health provision it must encourage it," he added.
However, Ritchie said that income protection may not always sit well with smaller employers. "It is perceived as expensive and the insurance company will presume a long-term relationship between the employer and the absent employee which can often be impractical for them as they need a replacement."
According to the TUC, 22,000 individuals leave work every year through ill health. Tudor said that businesses must start to measure the impact of health on the workforce. "We need more treatment, training and workplace adaptation. We need to make the work fit the worker rather than worker fit the work. But to do all this we need a joined up Government. Rehabilitation is new to Britain - in other parts of the world it is an important part of their health and insurance system."
The Government and the Health and Safety Commission has set a target that by 2010 rehabilitation services will be accessible to all.
