Medical perspectives: common long-term conditions and how employers can minimise the risk of illness

Many employers and workplaces are simply not set up to accommodate the realities of employees having progressive, chronic, terminal or fluctuating health conditions in the workplace.

The age at which UK citizens can access their state pension has increased and will continue increasing in response to an ageing population, meaning people in the UK will be working for longer. There are obvious implications here for the health of the workforce, as long-term conditions such as cancer, diabetes and arthritis, are not evenly distributed across age groups. Most experiences of disability and long-term illness are concentrated within the middle and later stages of life so, as the workforce ages, the number of people managing long-term conditions in the workplace can be expected to grow.

A government study of long-term/chronic illnesses in the workplace found the most prevalent, in order, were:

depression or anxiety
back and/or neck problems
chest or breathing problems, including asthma and bronchitis
heart, blood pressure or blood circulation problems
arthritis or rheumatism of the feet and legs
stomach, liver, kidney or digestive problems
arthritis or rheumatism of the hands and/or arms.

Managing illness is expensive for companies. Employees with cancer, for example, take an average of 151 days of sick leave. After stress-related health issues and back pain, cancer has been identified by employers as one of the main causes of long-term sickness absences. Not only does this come at great expense to the employee themselves, but also to their employer and the UK economy more widely. Half the total economic cost of cancer to the UK (approximately £7.6 billion) is due to premature deaths and time off work. The economic impact of a key staff member being off ill long-term can be as critical to a small/medium company as it is to the employee.

If we want to help our staff to avoid the chances of them ever having to live with the physical realities of having a progressive, chronic, illness, then what can we, as employers, do better or do more of to help them? Put another way, if we’re going to have our staff working for us for longer, how do we, as employers, keep them healthy and active?

A health and active workforce

First, let’s look at the one thing on that list that has probably affected us all in one way or another – cancer. Encouraging fundraising activities for the likes of Macmillan and Marie Curie (which in themselves help with team-building and create a positive, caring working environment) and holding educational events to ensure employees are both aware of the symptoms of the disease, and aware of the risk factors that can contribute to it, can help highlight the importance of a healthy lifestyle and reassure your employees that you care about their health and wellbeing.

However, there are obvious things we can do about some of the other points on the list. Ways of tackling back pain, and repetitive strain injury from computer usage, include the often-overlooked point of ensuring that the equipment you provide for staff is of the highest quality and suitable to meet their needs. People come in all different shapes and sizes, and so do chairs, desks and computer configurations: a key HR policy you can easily adopt is to ensure that people have access to equipment that exactly suits their body type and shape.

Elsewhere, you should spend time as an employer considering your employees’ mental health and wellbeing. Company reward policies, days out, events, fun things to do – these all help create a relaxed, informal, stress-free workplace. Other, more formal policies should also be adopted – offer counselling subsidies to staff and ensure managers and supervisors are trained to recognise and deal with mental health warning signs, including stress. You should also allow flexible working hours and patterns, and ensure you don’t overload or overburden any members of your team.

Employers now can do so much for their staff. It’s important to recognise that the opportunity to have a staff member for life is genuinely there if you take care of them at every step of their working journey.

The author is Dr Josh Cullimore, Bluecrest’s GP Advisor.

This article is provided by Bluecrest.