All Healthcare and wellbeing articles – Page 259
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Article
Buyer's guide to corporate eyecare 2013
Corporate eyecare benefits are popular with employees, enabling them to look after the health of their eyes with regular examinations. For an employer, the perk helps to meet some of its health and safety obligations.Under the 1992 Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations, employers have a legal obligation to ...
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Article
David Castling: Managing sickness absence effectively
Employers seeking to limit and manage employee absence require a clearly defined absence policy, which strikes a balance between supporting the majority of staff whose absence is genuine and preventing those who might seek to exploit the business. This policy needs to align with an organisation’s business objectives and define ...
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Analysis
How to reduce sickness absence
Health and work are intrinsically linked. Worklessness due to ill health has huge, adverse effects on individuals, businesses and the public sector, and consequently the economy as a whole. It is an area of policy where England is falling behind other countries, so much so that the annual cost of ...
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Article
Alison Green: How to manage PMI costs
The wide range of private medical insurance (PMI) products available means there has never been more, or better, ways of managing their cost.There are also myriad ways employers can manage these costs, from introducing an excess, so staff pay, say, the first £200 towards their treatment, to setting an annual ...
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Analysis
How to legally rehabilitate employees back to work
The staggering cost of employee absence to UK plc is £9 billion per year, according to The Sickness absence review, presented to government by Dame Carol Black, national director for Health at Work, and David Frost, former director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, in November 2011. So it ...
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Article
Paul Shires: Business benefits of an effective health strategy
With the National Health Service (NHS) under pressure to save £20 billion by 2015 and sickness absence costing UK employers about £9 billion a year, employers are under great pressure to ensure the right strategy is in place to manage employee health and wellbeing. But what are the benefits for ...
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Article
Vanessa Sallows: Group risk benefits help sick staff return to work
Group risk benefits must be used in conjunction with a comprehensive and tailored strategy to help employees return to work.Returning to work can be daunting for an employee who has been absent for a long time. Individuals often have concerns about the information they share with colleagues about the cause ...
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Article
Joy Reymond: How to deal with cancer
Four in 10 people will develop cancer at some point in their life, but it remains a difficult subject to talk about, especially in the workplace.On the upside, more people are living with cancer than ever before, thanks to better awareness of diet and fitness and advances in treatments. Those ...
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Analysis
How to manage healthcare costs
The recent National Health Service (NHS) turmoil and serious lapses in quality of care have prompted a call by a number of employers to address these deficiencies and the potential impact on their workforces.But how should employers do this? Should they revisit strategic risks? Should they add private medical insurance ...
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Analysis
Evacuation and repatriation cover for expatriates
IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE READ THIS…Most international PMI schemes include standard evacuation and repatriation cover, but this can be extended.When determining the level of cover, employers should consider location and the availability of medical facilities.Employers would be wise to consult their insurance provider and keep detailed information on the ...
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Analysis
Creating a musculoskeletal disorder strategy
A staggering 131 million working days were lost through employee sickness or injury in 2011, with musculoskeletal disorders the biggest cause of days lost (35 million), according to the Office for National Statistics’ Sickness absence in the labour market report, published in April 2012.That is why a proactive, integrated approach ...
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Article
Mark Sharpe: How to manage musculoskeletal disorders
A reduction in healthcare spend, coupled with an improvement in employee health, is always beneficial to a business. But what is the best approach, particularly for musculoskeletal disorders, which are one of the largest contributors to those costs?Employers should first identify the cause of the disorders and the cost of ...
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Opinion
Jane Fenwick: Opinion divided on open-referral PMI
Others are cynical, but accepting.Much of the challenge for us has been in communicating the reasons for its introduction. We invested a lot of time and energy in member communications, even offering personal meetings with a senior clinical director from our insurer for those who felt particularly aggrieved. Member perceptions ...
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Analysis
How to integrate fitness into a health strategy
Providing opportunities for physical activity to employees, particularly those who do not meet current criteria for such activity, has many benefits for employees and employers.The advantages of physical activity are well-established: lower obesity rates, increased psychological wellbeing, lower levels of stress and depression, and less risk of cardiovascular disease, type ...
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Article
NHS trusts spent £1bn on sick pay in three years
NHS trusts in England spent more than £1 billion on sick pay over the past three years, according to research by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP).The research, Fit enough for patients? An audit of workplace health and wellbeing services for NHS staff, looked at documents for 163 trusts, which ...
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Article
BBC's sickness absence not due to stress
The BBC has disclosed that only 0.18% of working days were recorded as lost due to stress, anxiety and/or depression between April 2011 and March 2012.Following a Freedom of Information request by LondonlovesBusiness.com, the Daily Mail reported that the broadcaster spent £130,000 on stress counselling for staff in 2012.A spokesperson ...
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Article
Employer tax relief introduced on health benefits
Budget 2013: The government is to introduce tax relief on up to £500-worth of health-related interventions funded by employers in a move designed to tackle long-term sickness absence and help staff return to work.As announced in January 2013, it is creating the health and work assessment and advisory service, targeted ...
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Article
Work Foundation calls on government to help staff with cancer
The government should do more to support people with long-term conditions, such as cancer, in returning to work, according to the Work Foundation. Its Returning to work: Cancer survivors and the health and work assessment and advisory service report paper has been written in partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support.The organisations ...
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Article
WPA launches medical diagnostic cover
Health plan provider WPA has launched a service to help cover employees’ private consultations and diagnostic procedures.Swift Diagnosis has been designed to enhance WPA’s existing cash plan product, NHS Top-Up, and aims to fill the gap between GP and in-patient care.The scheme, which is avaliable from 1 April 2013, also ...
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Article
TR Fleet partners Specsavers for driver risk management
Fleet consultancy TR Fleet has formed a partnership with Specsavers Corporate Eyecare to tackle the issue of poor eyesight and driver safety.Employers that use TR Fleet’s DriveSecure risk-management programme issued with Specsavers vouchers for free eye tests for their staff.The system will identify the drivers who are considered to be ...