Online support for a healthy working Wales

Support for individuals, GPs and businesses will be one click closer today when Dr Tony Jewell, Chief Medical Officer for Wales launches a new Welsh Assembly Government funded website today.

HealthyWorkingWales.com, launched at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff, will combine resources delivered in partnership with the Health and Safety Executive and National Public Health Service for Wales to promote healthy working practices and offer advice on how best to manage and recover at work if any health issues do arise.

The new website will bring together initiatives including Workboost Wales, Welsh Backs and the Corporate Health Standard providing easy access to information, advice and support on a broad range of workplace health issues.

Healthy Working Wales will also host a new pilot programme providing GPs with access to online resources on health and work issues. The programme – which has benefited from £300,000 worth of Welsh Assembly funding, will provide online support for GPs to access occupational health advice for their patients.

According to the Health and Safety Executive, 30 million working days are lost each year due to work related ill health and latest estimates of the cost of sickness absence and associated worklessness stand at £100 billion per year in the UK. The was recently highlighted in Dame Professor Carol Black's review of the health of Britain's working age population.

Dr Tony Jewell, the Chief Medical Officer for Wales said:

“Ensuring that we are able to lead healthy working lives is as much our responsibility as our employers.

“Unfortunately, not all ill health can be prevented but we can better support people to help them stay in work. The accessibility and convenience of an information resource like Healthy Working Wales is invaluable and will provide individuals, employers and health professionals with access to advice that may help prevent long term conditions from developing.

“For GPs the pilot project will provide access to the most up to date information, and the expertise of professionals trained specifically to help find solutions for people with health and work issues. This is an innovative approach to providing advice on health and work issues and I'm pleased that is has been developed here in Wales.”

Professor Dame Carol Black, National Director of Health and Work, said:

“The Human cost of worklessness blights communities and effects future generations. Workplaces offer great scope for targeting messages and initiatives, which can flow through to families. A lot of good work has already been done in Wales”.