Posted By Eric Burt
Does anyone use a sickness / absence form for their employees which asks the employee if their sickness was work-related or not?

The HSE has targets for reducing work-related ill-health, but as the majority of employers do not ask employees if their absence was work-related, I am curious as to how these figures can be accurate.

In respect of accidents at work it is straight-forward because we simply match the accident form with the sickness form, but with ill-health it is very much up to the employee to say whther they think it was caused by work.

Any thoughts?

Posted By Peter Longworth
If you ask whether the sickness is work related and the answer you get back is yes, you are probably half way to admitting liability in the event of a claim against you.
Not really what you want to be doing

Posted By Heather Aston
Can open, worms everywhere........

I don't think you can take the "if we don't ask then we can pretend it isn't happening" stance on this one - whatever happened to being proactive?

I accept the point about claims, but merely asking the employee whether they consider the problem work-related isn't accepting liability. Surely it's far better to investigate the issue properly at the time, make an informed judgement and record it than to wait until the claims letter comes in and then have no facts?

We do include the question on our return to work form. If the employee says the absence is work-related they get referred to Occupational Health who investigate properly.

Of course there's always room for doubt and if we have any, saying so in contemporaneous notes is a help rather than a hindrance in future claims.

Heather

Posted By Hilary Charlton
I think we need to be careful here and remember that we cannot be invasive. If someone is off with a work-related accident we can be as invasive as we like in the name of root cause analysis and investigation, however, if they are just ill then it's really none of our business unless they volunteer the information. Best idea is to get personnel involved in a return to work interview and ascertain root cause that way.

Hilary

Posted By David J.
“Can of worms” it most probably is. But a can that has open or at least half open for a long time. Whilst I consider absence management including work related to be a personnel and not safety issue I do recognise the significance of H&S re occupational health. Big problem has always been identifying work-related illness esp in the modern era of psychological aspects of absence: stress. How do we find out if it is work related; home/personal related or the most probably a combination of these? One will by definition compound the other. Most GPs will not, on a medical certificate, identify the cause of a persons alleged stress- i.e. work or nonwork related. Experience from using our occupational health provider is they basically, on most occasions go along with the employee. worker says work related our occ health people usually accept and report same. Problem we have…... talk to staff…. 90% will say “god I am stressed” . When in fact 80% of that group are at worst under pressure to deliver a piece of work. Yep I have always held the view that pressure is not stress!!!!

Getting back to the point. (getting stressed trying to hold onto it!!!)

How do we really measure psychological related illness/absence. re work or non work related or the combination of both? Ask the employee????

Anyone know how to close this bloody can?