Employers should be fined if they create an unhealthy workplace as part of West Street’s plan to adapt unemployed people to the workplace, according to a leading think tank.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) says employers who do not provide employees with a healthier working environment, including subsidized nutritious food, should face regulatory action, including fines and public censure. Ta.
The proposals come after the Health Secretary announced that weight loss drugs such as Ozempic could be given to unemployed people to help them return to work. Mr Street added that this would also ease the demands placed on the NHS by obesity.
But Chris Thomas, head of IPPR’s Health and Prosperity Committee, said it would not be effective to force people to return to work after treatment in a job that has a negative impact on their health.
He said employers and governments should agree on workplace health standards and companies should be responsible for monitoring compliance with those targets.
Employers who fail to take reasonable steps to reduce health hazards to employees, what Thomas described as a “duty to do no harm,” will be subject to regulatory action by the Health and Safety Executive.
For example, regulators could take action against large companies that experience “unacceptable rates of employee turnover” due to poor health.
Mr Thomas said the HSE’s role should be expanded to cover work-related health problems such as obesity, anxiety and depression, as well as workplace accidents such as falls from ladders.
He said this approach is similar to the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) mandate, which requires financial services to avoid causing foreseeable harm to customers and exposes companies that fail to do so to fines and public censure. He said it would be similar to a consumer mandate.
“One of the key factors in determining whether a workplace is beneficial or detrimental to a person’s weight and nutrition is the direct access to healthy foods,” says a recent IPPR report on obesity and the labor market. Author Thomas says:
“While there are still some workplaces that are pretty good at providing subsidized and nutritious food, the majority are not. Will you be able to prepare meals over time and even eat a proper lunch? Are you working on shift patterns and are you going to rely more on takeaways that open at 4 a.m. when you get home?
“If we send people back to the environment that caused their disease in the first place after medical intervention, we are not doing the most effective thing.”
Thomas added that small businesses should be offered financial incentives to help improve the health of their employees. He said a possible model is a program run by the West Midlands Combined Authority, made up of 18 local councils, which provides some small businesses with funding to improve the health and wellbeing of their employees. listed.
Sir Norman Lamb, the former Liberal Democrat MP and health secretary who chaired the Mental Health Action Plan ahead of the West Midlands Plan, said the government would improve workplace health if it increased national insurance contributions for employers. He suggested that companies could be exempted from paying insurance premiums. And happiness.
“Or they could impose a levy on employers that they would not have to pay if they took an evidence-based approach to keeping their employees healthy,” Lam added. “So you’re encouraging employers to behave well.”
The proposals come as NHS doctors and experts call for a comprehensive review of obesity treatment services across the UK in response to “unprecedented public demand” for medicines such as Ozempic and Zepbound. I was disappointed.
In a report published by the Obesity Health Alliance, more than 200 doctors and clinicians said the introduction of these new drugs was putting enormous pressure on England’s already strained NHS services.
