The only way the government's new Health and Work Service (HWS) can work effectively is if "people are forced" to take part, says Jelf Employee Benefits head of benefits strategy Steve Herbert.
Speaking at a Jelf Employee Benefits Employment Seminar, Herbert criticised the government for performing a "colossol u-turn" on its initial recommendation for the back to work scheme that would require GPs to refer any individual that had been off work for four weeks to the service.
He explained that this way "nobody would fall through the cracks, nobody would miss out on being assessed."
Herbert also urged employers to build the new HWS into their sickness absence procedures.
"Quite frankly I can't see why you wouldn't want to do this for anyone who had been off for four weeks. It's helping you assess your employees, it's helping you get your employees back into the workplace and it's not costing you anything. You'd almost be crazy not to," he said.
As revealed in November last year, the service is expected to be nationally available by April 2015, with it being rolled out to some areas of the country from October this year.
It was also announced that the service would remain voluntary and despite GPs remaining the primary source of referral for workers expected to be off sick for more than four weeks, they would not be compelled to refer patients.
"Strangely no one seems to be picking up on the fact that this is such a colossal U-turn," Herbert said.
"You now have a situation where actually they're trying to get away with saying it was always intended to be voluntary. It wasn't. It was a requirement on the GPs to send anyone who had been off for work for four weeks for an assessment."
Herbert added that for the HWS "to have an credibility at all" it needed to get off to a good start, explaining that otherwise people would lose faith in it, it would fall into disrepair and "be got rid of fairly rapidly".
"Well the only way it's going to work is if people are forced, someone somewhere, is mandated to make that referral."
"If there is going to be a mandate it can only really ultimately sit with the employers. And it needs to sit with somebody, ultimately otherwise the whole thing is going to fail," he concluded.
