Workplace Health System: What UK Employers Need to Know

The UK Government has set out plans to develop what it describes as Britain’s first Workplace Health System.

Published as part of the Keep Britain Working review in September 2026, the proposed system is intended to help more people remain healthy and in work, support people with health conditions or disabilities, and improve how employers respond when health begins to affect someone’s ability to work.

It is important to be clear that this is not a new legal requirement for employers. The Workplace Health System is still being developed and tested.

However, it gives a strong indication of how workplace health may be managed in the future.

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What is the Workplace Health System?

The proposed Workplace Health System is much broader than mental health alone.

It looks at physical health, mental health, disability, sickness absence, workplace adjustments, staying in work and returning to work.

The Government describes three main parts:

• better and more inclusive workplaces
• better workplace health provision
• better intelligence about workplace health and inclusion

The overall aim is to identify problems earlier, provide appropriate support and help prevent people from unnecessarily leaving work because of ill health.

You can read the Government’s September 2026 Keep Britain Working update here.

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What would employers be expected to do?

Under the proposed approach, employers would have an important role in creating healthier workplaces, identifying issues early and supporting employees whose health is affecting their work.

The Keep Britain Working report says employers would be expected to design healthier and more inclusive work, act early, make timely adjustments and support practical stay-in-work and return-to-work plans.

This is an important shift.

Rather than waiting until an employee has been absent for a long period, the intention is to identify barriers earlier and take practical action where possible.

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Workplace health is not just healthcare

One of the more interesting parts of the proposal is that workplace health is not being treated simply as access to doctors, counselling or treatment.

Work itself is part of the picture.

This includes the way jobs are designed, workloads are managed, employees are supported and adjustments are made when someone experiences a health problem.

The proposed system also recognises that workplace support is currently often fragmented between HR, occupational health, employee assistance programmes, GPs, insurers and other providers.

A future Workplace Health Provision model is intended to create a more coordinated approach.

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Better information could become a major part of the system

The Government also wants employers to have better information about what is happening across their workforce.

The proposed system includes plans for more consistent measures covering areas such as:

• work ability
• sickness absence
• successful return to work
• employee retention
• disability inclusion

A Workplace Health Intelligence Unit is also proposed to help develop common measures and provide better information about what approaches actually improve workplace health.

The intention is not simply to collect more data, but to give employers information they can act on.

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A new Work and Health Toolkit is also being tested

Another part of the programme is a proposed Work and Health Toolkit.

The current concept would allow employees to complete a short confidential assessment covering their health, wellbeing and ability to work.

Employees would receive their own results, while employers could receive protected, aggregated information showing trends across their workforce rather than individual employee responses.

This could help organisations identify emerging problems before they result in long-term absence or employees leaving work.

The concept is still being tested, including whether employees will engage with it and whether the information it provides is useful enough to encourage participation.

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A new British Standard is being developed

The British Standards Institution is also developing a new employer-facing standard called the Healthy Working Lifecycle.

The proposed standard is expected to cover:

• disability inclusion
• managing sickness absence
• recruitment and onboarding
• prevention and health promotion
• staying in work
• returning to work
• redeployment and exit

The standard is intended to provide organisations with a framework for implementing a Healthy Working Lifecycle and will apply to organisations of different types and sizes.

BSI says a draft for public comment is expected in early 2027. The original Keep Britain Working review recommended working towards a voluntary standard by 2029.

You can follow the BSI Healthy Working Lifecycle project here.

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Where does mental health fit?

Mental health is an important part of the Workplace Health System, but the system is not a mental health programme.

It takes a whole-workforce approach to health and people’s ability to remain in work.

Mental health support, early intervention and treatment are included alongside areas such as musculoskeletal health, disability, financial pressures, bereavement and caring responsibilities.

For employers, however, there is also an important distinction between supporting someone who is experiencing mental ill health and managing risks created by the workplace itself.

Those two things are connected, but they are not the same.

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What about work-related stress?

The proposed Workplace Health System does not replace employers’ existing responsibilities around work-related stress.

The Health and Safety Executive states that employers already have a legal duty to protect workers from work-related stress by carrying out a risk assessment and taking action on the findings.

HSE identifies six areas of work design that can contribute to stress if they are not properly managed:

• demands
• control
• support
• relationships
• role
• change

This preventative approach sits naturally alongside the wider direction of the proposed Workplace Health System: identifying problems earlier, understanding what is happening within the workplace and taking practical action.

You can read the HSE guidance on work-related stress here.

Stress risk assessment remains an important part of managing work-related stress. For practical guidance, templates and free assessment tools, visit StressRiskAssessment.co.uk.

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Where Mente fits

Mente has been supporting workplace mental health since 2017.

Our focus is increasingly on prevention, workplace risk and giving employers better information about what is happening within their organisation.

The Mente platform brings together workplace surveys, stress risk assessment, employee support, benefits, educational resources and employer reporting in one place.

This means employers can identify workplace concerns, provide routes to support and record the actions they have taken.

As the Workplace Health System develops, we will continue to follow the Government and BSI programmes closely and update this page as further detail becomes available.

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What happens next?

The Workplace Health System is still being developed.

Government is currently working with employers, service providers and regional Vanguard programmes to test different parts of the model.

The BSI Healthy Working Lifecycle standard is also under development, with a draft for public consultation expected in 2027.

For employers, there is no need to wait for a future system before taking action.

Understanding workplace health risks, listening to employees, making appropriate adjustments and acting on identified work-related stress risks are things organisations can already do today.

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