- Conference
- 2025 National Disabled Members' Conference
- Date
- 30 June 2025
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Conference, quoting UK Government figures, a 2025 TUC report “Disabled workers’ access to reasonable adjustment”, noted that one in four of the working -age population are classed as disabled. That translates into 5.5million disabled people of working age.
However, we know that within the workforce that will be underestimated, and that disability prevalence will increase due our aging workforce and health conditions developing later in life.
It is now more important than ever that our disabled members are appropriately supported when they are off sick and returning to work to help retain them in the workplace, and a good quality occupational health service is essential to that.
Unfortunately, anecdotally the service from our various occupational health services seems to vary considerably. Conference, while we know that the Equality Act 2010 protects disabled people who meet the legal definition from discrimination in the UK and requires employers to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, unfortunately, this doesn’t appear to be translating down from the occupational health experiences our members tell us of.
This can result in advice going back to managers that is lacking either because the employer hasn’t been clear enough in the questions they wish answered, or because the Occupational Health report is too vague and non-committal. Some activists tell of reducing quality of service, poor quality of reports, a lack of empathy and real support, and non-committal to whether that person is covered by the Equality Act’s provisions. Some describe the service as being ‘another mouthpiece’ for managers, and some tell us of managers who disregard the advice unless it suits their agenda to get the person back to work without any effort on their part to consider reasonable adjustments, or to get them out.
Concerns have been expressed by our activists that cutbacks in public services have led them not only to outsourcing of Occupational Health provision but also buying the cheapest level of service which is reflected in the lower quality services our members receive. Conference, you get what you pay for.
For disabled members, access to good quality Occupational Health services is vital, as it can literally make the difference of being in work, or not. They provide medical expertise and are an objective source of health information that is difficult for an employer to ignore when considering reasonable adjustments and matters of capability.
This is more important at a time when the UK Government is seeking to reform health and disability benefits and support to people of working age. Reducing and stopping benefits will not resolve those issues unless similar efforts are made to compel employers to properly fulfil their responsibilities to disabled staff.
Conference calls on the National Disabled Members Committee to:
1) Remind branches that employers should act themselves to ensure that they are complying with the Equality Act’s requirements to ensure they are fulfilling their duty to make reasonable adjustments, as well as their wider duty of care.
2) Develop a survey for branches in relation to the Occupational Health Services offered by employers the quality of the referrals, and the quality of the services offered.
3) Call on branches to seek statistics on the total number of staff in their employing organisation, and the number of disabled staff who have left the organisation due to ill-health capability in the past five financial years and collate this information to supplement the survey’s findings.
4) Use all findings to produce a guide for branches on good practice standards that would be associated with good employer Occupational Health provision and encourage branches to seek improvements to their own Occupational Health policies and provision where their employer’s provision falls short of the guidance standards.
5) Use all findings to lobby the UK Government (and devolved nations) to seek improvements to employer occupational health provision and practices to support disabled people work and remain in work, including recommendations of how this may be achieved.