The Leicestershire Fit For Work Service (FFWS) is one of six successful national pilot sites in the UK, which began in April 2010. Funding from the Department of National Health, Work and Pensions has been awarded and allowed the service to extend for two more years, until 31st March 2013.
The main focus of the FFWS is to provide personalised back-to-work support to sickness absentees – people off sick from work on health grounds. With the overall aim to assist them in their recovery and return to work more quickly than they otherwise would. This will help to reduce the potential cost of sickness to the economy, which stands at £100 billion each year and to improve health and wellbeing at work.
The Leicestershire Pilot has 2 GPs on the team and a full-time Occupational Health Nurse Advisor. Most of the work to support people back to work is done by 5 Case Managers. These are non-health workers with good interpersonal, negotiation and motivation skills.
How is the service accessed?
We accept referrals from GPs and practice therapists. As we are responsible for issuing the client with Fit Notes (if they are off sick from work) we ask the client’s own GP to agree to the referral. We also encourage employers to tell their staff about the service, so the staff member can ask their GP to refer them to the service. The service is voluntary and is free to employees from small to medium sized businesses.
Who will it assist?
- Still employed/self employed
- Employees from a small or medium sized business
- Employee who has been off for 4 - 12 weeks
- Employees on an unplanned episode of sickness absence with an uncertain
return to work
- Employees on long-term sickness, waiting for 'something to happen'
(physiotherapy, mediation, disciplinary, counselling, etc.) or have other
problems affecting ability to work (debts, personal and family welfare)
- Patient's registered with a GP surgery in Leicester City, Leicestershire
County or Rutland.
What will the service do?
The service aims to address practical issues preventing a return to work, providing a support framework and return to work action plan. We offer 1-2-1, personalised and confidential support, with access to a wide range of interventions and links to non-medical advice. The FFWS will:
- Provide hands-on proactive solutions and/or sign posting to other services
- Improve access to psychological therapies
- Support the client journey from referral to discharge
- Liaise or mediate with employers.
- Measure success and patient/GP/Employer satisfaction with the service
How we support and benefit Employees
- We spend time listening and understand your problems and issues.
- We act impartially, in that we neither act on behalf of the employer or employee.
- We build your confidence about going back to work.
- We explore potential options with your employer including phased return to
work or amended duties
- We support you getting back to work quickly
- We provide rapid access to social and clinical support
- We encourage a dialogue with your employer
How we support and benefit Employers
- We work impartially with you to help identify the best way to get your employee
back into work
- We help by improving communication between you and the employee often
providing more information which facilitates a faster return to work
- We work with you and the employee to develop a return to work action plan.
Who has used the service?
We see clients from all age groups, male and female, and from a wide variety of occupations and backgrounds. The majority of our clients (over 50%) are referred to us by their GP as they are off work with stress, anxiety or depression. We also help people who have musculoskeletal problems such as back pain, and around 30% of our clients have these conditions.
What results have we achieved so far?
We have been successful in engagement with a number of employers on an individual level, as service is client led. We have worked with a wide variety of employers from a number of different sectors including:
- Retail - ASDA
- Local Government - Leicester City Council
- Education - Loughborough College
- SMEs - The Mark Group
- Corporate - Lancome /L'Oreal
All of the list above have been contacted by the service and have entered into liaison / mediation in order to support our client's return to work.
Since 2010 we seen over 700 client and supported over 65% of them to return to work or to stay in work. Our biggest success has been returning clients with mental health issues to work - here we have a 92% success rate.
The client intervention breakdowns are as follows:- Musculoskeletal therapy 20% Mental health therapy 20% Mediation / Negotiation with Employer 20% Learning & Skills advice 15% Debt / Legal / Housing advice 15% Advice on finding new employment 10%
How we support and benefit GP's?
- We can help with the frustration of seeing patients repeatedly without being
able to do much more than changing medications and support
- We provide an avenue of referral to comprehensive services which can act on
both the medical and social issues
- We help your patient to access the right support from multiple specialists’
agencies which can be difficult and time consuming for you to access
- We reduce time pressures and frequency of patient visits back to your surgery.
- We enable you to treat your patient far more holistically.
- We help by preventing patients’ mental health deteriorating a result of not
working and requiring more intense interventions
- We take responsibility for signing the Fit Note
Key Partners Involved
The FFWS has the support of various local organisations which include:
- Leicester City Council
- NHS Leicestershire County & Rutland
- Leicestershire County Council
- NHS Leicester
- Bushloe End Surgery
- Jobcentre Plus
- IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies)
- Leicester and Leicestershire City Employment & Skills Board
- Leicester and Leicestershire Learning Partnership
Further Contacts
For further information please contact
The Fit For Work Team
Voluntary Action Leicestershire
9 Newarke Street
Leicester
LE1 5SN
Tel: 0116 285 1710
Fax: 0116 285 1716
Email: admin@leicesterfit4work.org.uk
Website: http://www.leicesterfit4work.org.uk/?
