National initiative Keep Britain Working (KBW) has published its latest progress update, setting out plans for a new UK workplace health standard to address economic inactivity caused by ill health.
Long-term sickness among the working-age population currently costs the UK an estimated £212 billion each year.
KBW estimates that retaining just 1% more of the working population in employment (330,000 people) would add substantial economic capacity without requiring new housing or immigration.
In partnership with the British Standards Institution (BSI), KBW is drafting a formal Healthy Working Lifecycle Standard. The framework establishes a shared responsibility model across employers, employees, and healthcare providers:
- Employers will embed structured stay-in-work and return-to-work plans and facilitate health checks.
- Employees will be encouraged to engage actively with health support, participate in health assessments, and recognise the long-term value of work for personal health.
- Healthcare Providers will deliver coordinated case management, linking occupational health, HR, and primary care pathways to intervene before conditions escalate.
To address the lack of health data across UK workplaces, KBW also plans to establish a Workplace Health Intelligence Unit (WHIU) to securely aggregate outcome data, benchmark performance, and guide evidence-based health policy.
The Keep Britain Working Report stated: “It's rare to find an opportunity that benefits employers, improves life chances, reduces government spending, and doesn't require large up-front investment. This is growth hiding in plain sight.
“Our task, with the growing coalition we are assembling, is to design, build, and deliver the conditions that make this opportunity realisable as soon as possible and on a national scale.”
