Council for Work and Health

We asked Joy Reymond VRA Trustee and the VRA's representative on the Council for Work and Health to tell us more about their work.

‍The Council for Work & Health is a multi-professional group, established to address the challenges that were highlighted in Dame Carol Black's 2008 report "Working for a Healthier Tomorrow",

‍"To date, occupational health has been largely restricted to helping those in employment. But supporting working-age health today requires us to reach much further. It remains critically important to improve health at work and to enable workers with health problems to stay at work, but occupational health must also become concerned with helping people who have not yet found work or have become workless, to enter or return to work.

My recommendations point to an expanded role for occupational health and its place within a broader collaborative and multidisciplinary service. Ultimately I believe such a service should be available to all, whether they are entering work, seeking to stay in work, or trying to return to work without delay in the wake of illness or injury."and again in 2011 in the Frost/Black Report: "Health at Work - An independent review of the sickness absence system in Great Britain"

So the CWH was finally established in 2012 and consisted of nearly 20 different professions who were motivated to rise to Dame Carol's challenge.The VRA has been at the table since the beginning, firstly Andrew Frank, then Chris Parker, and John Pilkington, and most recently, me. We have been very involved in a number of initiatives, but I would say (although Andrew, Chris, and John may have a very different perspective!) that our role has been primarily to ensure the Council keeps a focus on Dame Carol's clarion call.

In other words, that we need to work on getting all our different professions to work collaboratively with one another, and that we should all be looking at the larger range of activities that should be going on in occupational health (which I try not to confuse with 'Occupational Health'), including helping people "stay at work, entering work and returning to work". (But when I see Dame Carol's 2008 quote above, I feel a little like I'm experiencing a VR Groundhog Day).

On the other hand, there are a number of hopeful green shoots. The government is starting to recognise the very important role of VR in helping people to "Remain in work, Recover in work, Return to work and Reach for work". I don't think we would have had the platform to promote the value of the VR professional without being on the Council for Work and Health. The Council is very closely linked into various departments in Health, DHSE, DWP, OH&S, and NHS, and this has helped us promote VR principles to all these groups.

The Council has also undertaken some very useful initiatives. For instance, in 2018, the Council commissioned research called Talking Work: A guide for Doctors discussing work and work modifications with patients.Earlier on, in 2016, the Council supported a project that aimed to articulate a vision of how occupational health should be delivered over the next 20 years and to identify the workforce planning that is needed to support that vision. Two workforce reports resulted from these investigations.

Most recently, the Council is currently commissioning research that aims to develop a model of supervision for mental health first aiders, with an emphasis on improving the governance of mental health first aid and standards for providers.

Over its 9 year history, the Council has been involved in many issues, and this short note hardly does justice to all its activities. Please do speak to me if there is anything you would like to know about its work.  You can find the Council website here.