A progress update has been released on the implementation of the recommendations laid out in the Keep Britain Working review published on 5 November 2025. The independent review carried out by Sir Charlie Mayfield considered the role of employers in tackling health-based economic inactivity and promoting healthy and inclusive workplaces.
The latest update, published on 3 July 2026, highlights the scale of the challenge, as “economic inactivity linked to ill-health costs an estimated £212 billion a year through lost productivity, higher welfare spending and increased pressure on the NHS.”
Key proposals in the final report from November 2025 included launching a three-year “vanguard phase” to deliver three major changes:
- developing the Healthy Working Lifecycle as a certified standard
- building better Workplace Health Provisions (WHP)
- creating a Workplace Health Intelligence Unit (WHIU) to aggregate and analyse data, guide continuous improvement and provide leadership, as a movement HQ, across the new system.
The progress update says that based on engagement with organisations, any standard must avoid being overly prescriptive to be accessible across the diversity of UK employers. As the future system is tested and developed, the report emphasises that employers will need to take shared responsibility with employees, providers and the Government and be “on the pitch” when it comes to keeping people healthy and in work.
Employer expectations set out in the progress update include:
- providing workplace health provisions, including work and health checks
- embedding new stay-in-work plans
- implementing return-to-work plans
- tracking and sharing outcome data with WHIU.
As part of the new system, employers may need to collect two types of data.
- Performance data, including data on sickness absence, return-to-work outcomes and disability inclusion.
- Workforce health and work-ability data which would include data about the health, support and adjustment needs that shape outcomes while people are still in work.
This data could be collected through work and health checks introduced initially at onboarding and at trigger points such as periods of absence. The option for this to be delivered digitally by an independent entity with assurance that no individual data will be shared with employers (or healthcare providers without express permission) is also being explored. A phased rollout would be likely, starting with larger employers or specific regions.
