Management of sickness and absence

The aim of management referral is to help businesses to maintain the mental and physical health of employees by developing solutions to keep staff with health issues at work. We provide independent prognosis and advice on staff who are unable to work due to long-term or short-term intermittent health problems, and organisational wide steps to reduce sickness absence.  

Employers who invest in Occupational Health are known to benefit from reduction of business costs and performance improvement through lower absenteeism, enhanced relationships within the business, enhanced productivity and reduced staff turnover.  

The typical reasons for management referrals are but not limited to stress, anxiety, depression, musculoskeletal complaints, life long illness, reoccurrence of short-term sickness absence and long-term sickness absence.  

Our management referral report offers impartial advice about the impact of medical conditions on work and the impact of work on medical conditions, job role adjustments and rehabilitation support. The advice provided in the report aims to help employees to return to work sooner rather than later even while recovering as evidence suggest that the longer an employee stays absent from work; the difficult it will be for them to return to work. Being in work is therapeutic as it is good for our mental and physical health. Therefore, we focus on early intervention and early return to work strategies.  

We recognise that employers depend upon clear, unambiguous, useful and practical advice from Occupational Health (OH) that will help them in making informed decisions on managing ill health and absence. 

Therefore, following in-depth and comprehensive consultation with the employee; the employer will be provided with a report that addresses the problems highlighted in the referral. 

The report will explain the health condition, how it affects employee's ability to carry out their work duties or how work duties are affecting their condition, an opinion on employees' fitness for work, the anticipated recovery time (prognosis/outlook) and an opinion on the likelihood of application of Equality Act. 

However, as you may be aware; whether or not someone falls within the remit of disability legislation is subject to legal decision and not medical. Our reports are of a good quality and we use language that is easy to understand.  

In some cases, employees may be signposted to allied health professionals such as physiotherapists, counsellors/ EAP services, GP, Occupational therapist etc. In some circumstances we may need to request further medical evidence from the employee’s GP or Hospital Consultant.  

Employers are allowed to ask questions per management referral and manager feedback following receipt of report is accepted within 7 days of receiving the report. This will assist you to get good value of your management referral. 

Every management referral consultation is allocated enough time to allow employee to explain their issues, through assessment and to give the practitioner enough time to write a high-quality report. The average time allocated per management referral is 1 hour.