Keep Britain Working: A National Growth Opportunity: September 2026
In September 2026 the government published the Keep Britain Working review update, framed as a ‘national growth opportunity’. Led by British businessman Sir Charlie Mayfield, the update sets out proposed plans for Britain’s first ‘Workplace Health System’.
The update follows their earlier independent review, which found that the UK is sliding into an economic inactivity crisis, driven in large part by ill-health and barriers to work faced by disabled people.
The review concluded that:
- Around 300,000 people with a health condition leave work every year.
- Someone absent for 4 to 6 weeks has a 96% chance of returning. After a year, fewer than half return.
- A 1% increase in participation would mean around 330,000 more people in work, equivalent to the productive capacity of a city the size of Cardiff.
- Around 2.8 million people are economically inactive because of ill health or disability.
- Health-related economic inactivity is estimated to cost Britain around £212 billion a year, close to 7% of GDP.
The Keep Britain Working: A National Growth Opportunity: September 2026 update essentially moves the independent review on from its fact-finding phase to a delivery programme aimed at tackling health-related economic inactivity and promoting healthy, inclusive workplaces, with the proposed Workplace Health System at the heart of this new approach.
What is the plan for Britain’s first Workplace Health System?
The proposed Workplace Health System has three components:
- better, more inclusive workplaces
- better workplace health provision
- better intelligence on workplace health and inclusion
As part of this, employers are being asked to design healthier and more inclusive work, act early when problems emerge, make timely adjustments and support practical stay-in-work and return-to-work plans.
The report acknowledges that many employers don’t have the confidence, capability or infrastructure to do this consistently. This is something that we’ve also seen from our own experience, especially with smaller businesses that have limited resources.
To help give businesses some structure and guidance, an employer standard is being developed with the British Standards Institution (BSI), alongside affordable support for smaller firms.
What will employers be expected to do?
While the BSI standard is still being developed, the review update does list a set of six principles and good practice measures that are being considered.
It describes these principles as “core employer actions”, while also explaining what this will mean for employees. The review also sets out specific commitments to test for four of the six principles with ‘Vanguard’ organisations (early adopters, such as Transport for London, that will trial the programme and feed into the review’s plans).
Principle one: Own workforce health
What this means for the employer:
Treat health as a leadership, performance and work-design and environment issue, with clear accountability.
What this means for employees:
Participate in conversations about health, available support and recovery where circumstances allow.
Principle two: Act early to prevent issues
What this means for the employer:
Make it safe to raise concerns, and to talk about health and work, equip managers to discuss impacts on work rather than make a diagnosis, and provide visible routes to help and support.
What this means for the employee:
Raise concerns about health or work early and work with their employer to identify what work may be safely possible, and what support or adjustments may help make it sustainable.
How this is being tested:
A work and health conversation offered within eight weeks of joining.
Principle three: Keep people in work
What this means for the employer:
Respond quickly, make adjustments and agree a stay-in-work plan focused on barriers that can be changed or removed.
What this means for the employee:
Collaboratively develop, monitor and review stay-in-work plans, considering adjustments, workload, hours, job design or other changes that may help sustain work.
How this is being tested:
1. A conversation within five working days of an issue being raised, and a stay-in-work plan with named actions, owners and review points.
2. Adjustments agreed promptly and put in place as quickly as practicable.
Principle four: Plan return from day one
What this means for the employer:
Maintain supportive contact during absence and coordinate recovery with a practical return-to-work plan.
What this means for the employee:
Notify employer of absence from day one, and no later than day 3, maintaining agreed contact with employer during absence and engaging with return-to-work planning and workplace, occupational health or clinical support that can help recovery and return.
How this is being tested:
1. Contact on day one of absence where possible, and no later than day three.
2. A return-to-work plan co-created for any absence and particularly those likely to pass four weeks or linked to underlying conditions, with provision engaged within ten working days where needed.
3. Regular touchpoints established with agreement of the employee. Sustained return measured at six months, not day one.
Principle five: Include everyone
What this means for the employer:
Identify and work with employees to address issues with implementation of adjustments, retention and return to work approaches and disability participation.
What this means for the employee:
Support data collection and reporting and share experience and feedback where this can improve workplace support, policies and practice, identifying barriers to participation and suitable adjustments to support inclusion.
How this is being tested:
Participation and retention measured annually, using common definitions.
Principle six: Use the right support
What this means for the employer and employee:
Bring in impartial advice, treatment or coordinated case management when the employee and manager need it.
Our analysis of Britain’s first Workplace Health System
Outside of HR magazines and charities, the Keep Britain Working: A National Growth Opportunity: September 2026 update and Britain’s first Workplace Health System programme haven’t yet received the national coverage they deserve, as health-based economic inactivity is one of the country’s biggest crises, one that without a serious change is set to get much, much worse.
There is therefore a lot to be welcomed from the proposed Workplace Health System, particularly the emphasis on prevention, early intervention and better, more inclusive workplaces.
The writers of the report say it is "not a spending programme", but if this is the case how will organisations, especially SMEs, be supported to implement the framework?
How will the new BSI standard be governed? There are already frameworks such as ISO and the HSE Management Standards, so how do we ensure this is seen as a business priority rather than a “nice to have”?
The report also says, “This is not about blame or creating a compliance focus”. So how do we ensure employers implement this standard, when their resources are probably already stretched?
Also, how will they measure and report the results? HR teams already tell us they don't have the resource to effectively collect and analyse wellbeing data, so will this create extra admin for them?
Finally, the report emphasises that prevention is better than cure. While the value of prevention is well understood, how do we ensure buy-in at leadership level?
Will the Workplace Health System work for SMEs?
The update rightly identifies that “the critical test is whether the model is affordable and accessible for all employers, including SMEs and microbusinesses.”
Feasibility and cost are going to be the two biggest barriers to overcome, especially if there’s no funding in place to support SMEs with adoption of the Workplace Health System.
Indeed, the West Midlands Combined Authority has actually already tested a similar programme and they ran into similar challenges. RAND Europe's Evaluation of the Wellbeing Premium Programme found that nearly all interviewees cited “capacity and time constraints as reason for not participating”. Many felt they would have benefited from more support to implement wellbeing programmes, without feeling they needed to be wellbeing experts
So, as well as making it feasible and affordable for SMEs to adopt a Workplace Health System, SMEs will also need expert guidance on how to implement the proposed framework.
HR teams shouldn’t wait to support employee wellbeing
The Keep Britain Working review takes a country-wide view of the damage being caused by the falling number of healthy people in the workplace, but the impact is felt business by business, and person by person.
Research from the CIPD found that UK employees were off sick for 9.4 days on average, reducing capacity and slowing down productivity. Mental ill health, such as depression or anxiety, was found to be the top cause of long-term absence of four weeks or more. The full report found that investing in employee wellbeing improved people’s physical and mental health and wellbeing in the majority of organisations that did so.
So while the Workplace Health System and BSI standard are still being developed, employers shouldn’t wait to start putting some of these principles into practice. The problem is that SMEs often struggle with the costs needed to look after their team. Research from Hussle found that 33% of SMEs struggle with the costs of supporting employee wellbeing, while 18% lack the necessary time and resources.
How the Altruist Wellbeing Forum can help
The high costs and lack of resources to implement wellbeing support is exactly why we’ve worked hard to develop an affordable, practical alternative to expensive consultancy or one-off wellbeing events. The Altruist Wellbeing Forum is an online community for HR professionals and Wellbeing Champions, built with SMEs in mind and designed to help them put good workplace wellbeing into practice without needing a dedicated wellbeing team.
Members get a safe space to discuss challenges with people in similar roles, share ideas and learn what is working in other organisations. The sessions are led by experts, delivered alongside practical, evidence-based resources, including mental health policy and stress risk assessment templates, staff survey questions, wellbeing assessments and tools for demonstrating ROI.
It means HR teams can access ongoing guidance, practical tools and peer support at a fraction of the cost of external consultancy, helping them start taking action now while the Workplace Health System and BSI standard continue to develop.
Once the standard is published, the Forum will also provide guidance on what it means for employers in practice, helping members understand what is expected of them and how they can apply it within their own organisation.
Book a free live session to try it for yourself.
