UK to lose 600,000 workers to illness without fundamental shift.

The Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) yesterdat published new analysis warning that by 2035 up as many as 3.37 million adults will be economically inactive due to long-term health conditions without urgent action from Government and employers.

The projection represents an increase of 26% over the next decade and would cost the economy as much as £36 billion a year if the current trajectory continues.

In their view, the growing number of people leaving the workforce due to long-term conditions is being driven by a range of factors, including musculoskeletal disorders, mental health problems and cardiovascular disease.

Previous RSPH research has shown that there are 10 million people across the UK workforce with no access to health support.

RSPH is calling for a ‘fundamental shift’ in the way policymakers and employers see workplace health – arguing that workplaces are under-utilised as settings that can support people with long-term health conditions to stay in work and even prevent them developing.

It has put forward a range of measures that it argues would make workplaces better equipped to support the health of their employees. These include a national health and work standard that would establish a minimum level of support for all UK workers.

Earlier this year, the TUC published research indicating that work-related illness was costing the UK economy over £400m a week. They reported that the rise in days lost to work-related ill health has coincided with a huge boom in insecure work, estimating that over a similar period (2011-2023) the number of people in precarious employment also rocketed by a third to over 4 million. 

The figures from the RSPH come in advance of the upcoming Keep Britain Working review, due to be published this month. Chief Executive, William Roberts, said:

The UK’s productivity crisis is one of the biggest challenges facing our economy and long-term health conditions in the workforce are a major factor in this,” according to William Roberts, the chief executive at the RSPH. “We need a fundamental shift in how we see the role of employers in keeping people healthy backed up by a national standard that covers all UK employees