Agenda item

(To receive a report from Vicki Sharpe, Human Resources Services Manager

and Lauren Washington, Commercial and Procurement Officer, which invites the Board to consider a report on the re-procurement of the Occupational Health Contract which is due to be considered by the Executive Councillor for People Management, Legal and Corporate Property between 06 and 10 September 2021. The views of the Board will be reported to the Executive Councillor as part of their consideration of this item)

Consideration was given to a report by the HR Services Manager, which invited the Board to consider a report on the Occupational Health Contract, which was due to be considered by the Executive Councillor for People Management, Legal and Corporate Property between 06 and 10 September 2021.

Members were referred to Appendix A to the report, which set out a proposal for the re-procurement of the Occupational Health Contract for four years from April 2022 to March 2026, with an estimated value of £1.1m.

The HR Manager emphasised the key objective in re-procuring the contract, which was to support employee health and wellbeing; this priority had gained impetus since the onset of Covid, and the resultant strain and difficulties experienced by employees dealing with the pandemic and working from home.

Alongside this, the Council looked to facilitate a quicker return to work for absent employees, identify reasonable adjustments to support employees with long-term health conditions and to enable them to work in a safe manner and to provide a provision of access to Independent Qualified Medical Practitioners is a statutory requirement of the Council's and LFR's pension schemes when making assessments for ill-health retirement alongside a number of other objectives.

It was noted that the Council had been in contract with its incumbent Occupational Health supplier, HML, since 7 March 2017, and had extended the contract by a further 12 months due to prevailing difficulties brought about by the pandemic.

The report proposed to procure ESPO's Occupational Health Services Framework 985_19 for 4 years (2 years fixed +1 extension year +1 extension year) from April 2022- March 2026, with a Contract Value based on the current working volumes at current rates (the Council's pay unit rates for each appointment): approximately £1.1 million for the 4-year period from April 2022 until March 2026.

Members considered the report and during the discussion the following points were noted:

·         The occupational health contract would provide a range of activities to help improve staff's health and wellbeing, but would not resolve all health issues for staff, as a number of these would be reliant on the health service, such as for operations or treatment. The occupational health service would enable staff to continue to work by identifying adjustments that could be made to their role or workplace.

·         An assessment of the number of staff that were able to continue working through early screening and intervention would show the benefits of the service and how it was performing.

·         The Council has an ageing workforce and the Board recognised that early intervention was important to ensure that staff were able to thrive at work and then have a long and healthy retirement. It was recommended that a preventative strategy, with some key performance indicators, should be considered to ensure early intervention was provided to support staff with health issues.

·         Occupational health would provide a more in-depth assessment of a person's ability to work than a GP, and would look at options such as making adjustments or redeployment to enable a person to continue to work.

·         The person's health issues and the need for a physical assessment would be taken into account when deciding whether to offer a face to face or video appointment.

·         The option for video appointments had been included to open up the contract to a wider range of providers for the tendering process.

·         All of Lincolnshire's district councils were offered the opportunity to be included in the contract but all except one had declined the offer. It was unclear whether this was as a result of the formation of the South and East Lincolnshire Councils Partnership, as Boston Borough Council already had an alternative provider for occupational health services.

·         Sickness levels were continuing on a downward trend year on year. However there had been an increase in stress and emotional wellbeing sickness amongst staff and the Council was working with partners to increase the services available. There was a need to improve awareness of the health and wellbeing services available to staff and remove the stigma around accessing these services.

·         It was recommended that councillors should also be able to have access to some of the health and wellbeing services available to staff.

·         It was suggested that a councillor development session should be considered to support councillors to raise awareness amongst staff of the services that were available. 

·         The Board supported the recommendations to the Executive, as set out in the report.

RESOLVED:

1.    That the Board support the recommendations to the Executive Councillor for People Management, Legal and Corporate Property, as set out in the report;

2.    That a summary of the above comments be passed on to the Executive Councillor for People Management, Legal and Corporate Property as part of their consideration of this item.