Working Together For A Healthier Europe: National Good Practice Sharing Session

Working together for a healthier Europe National Good Practice Sharing Session

Wednesday 30 September 2009

Introduction to the National Good Practice Sharing Session Professor Dame Carol Black National Director, Health and Work, United Kingdom

Session agenda Title

Presenter

Welcome and aims of the session

Prof Dame Carol Black

MSDs and chronic diseases – combining health challenges and productivity

Elizabeth Kidd, DG SANCO

The EU Framework – towards more integrated management of MSDs at work

Antonio Cammarota, DG EMPL

Q&A Country good practice session – Sweden Country good practice session – Belgium

Ingemar Petersson, MORSE Marc de Graaf, Prevent

Country good practice session – Spain

Prof Juan Jover, San Carlo Hospital, Madrid

Q&A

All

Break out sessions

Prof Dame Carol Black

Aims of the session  To gain an overview of the issues in the management of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in Europe and incountry  To hear the perspectives of EU policy makers and national Member State stakeholders on how they are approaching these issues  To begin to formulate how good practice in member states can be shared and adopted elsewhere, and action can be taken to drive policy change

session

Topics for the Good Practice Breakout Sessions  What are the roles of the different stakeholders in delivering health and work agendas?  What are the activities that can be undertaken to promote good practice ?  What are the barriers to achieving good practice?  What actions can be taken to drive policy change in your own setting?

What is our overall goal ? Healthy engaged workforces in well-managed organisations • Quality products • High-performing resilient workforces • Enhanced productivity Contributing to : • well- functioning societies • European prosperity

Scale of the problem – EU EU  100m people in the EU suffer from chronic musculoskeletal pain  MSDs account for nearly 50% of all work-related disorders and 60% of permanent work incapacity in the EU  Almost 50% of all absences from work of three days or more are caused by MSDs  Represents up to 2% of Fit for Work? Musculoskeletal Disorders in the European Workforce, The Work Foundation, 30 September 2009 EU GDP

Common types of work-related illness

Health and Occupation Reporting Network (THOR), a research programme of the Occupational and Environmental Health Research Group of the University of Manchester

Other consequences of the problem  Reinforces and perpetuates patterns of poverty and social exclusion  Blights communities and stunts prospects of tomorrow’s working age population  Hinders progress towards higher economic growth and greater social justice

Not just the worker or business is affected, but often the family and children. Children in workless households suffer  Unsustainable cost to higher rates of psychiatric Working for a Healthier Tomorrow, Dame Carol Black, 17 March 2008 the economy 1. Working for a Healthier Tomorrow, Dame Carol Black, 17 March 2008 disorder.

Tackling the problem:

Correcting misconceptions and changing attitudes  Compelling evidence that work is generally good for both physical and mental health and well-being. Beneficial effects of work outweigh the risks1

 In some countries this misconception underpins procedures for certification of sickness absence2  Also, vocational rehabilitation, occupational health service, and employer flexibility are frequently inadequate.

 Nevertheless the fallacy persists that individuals should only be at work if 100% fit. Many individuals wrongly believe  Vital that employers, that work is harmful to healthcare professionals 1 health . and the public understand 1. Waddell and Burton, September 2006the positive links better 2. Working for a Healthier Tomorrow, Dame Carol Black, 17 March 2008and health2 between work

Working for a healthier tomorrow, 2008 – a new vision for health and work

“At the heart of this Review is a recognition of, and a concern to remedy, the human, social and Working for a Healthier economic Tomorrow costs of impaired health and well-being in relation to working life in Britain. The aim is not to offer a utopian solution for improved health in working life, but rather to identify the factors that stand in the way of good health Prevent illness, promote health, intervene early, improve and to elicit interventions, including changes in the health of the workless. attitudes, behaviours and practices – as well as 11 services – that can help overcome them.”

Illustration:

How one proposed national model could work

Paper ‘sick note’

Electronic ‘fit note’

1. Working for a Healthier Tomorrow, Dame Carol Black, 17 March 2008