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DCW115-Occupational Health and Employee Wellbeing Policy

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{{org_field_name}}

Registration Number: {{org_field_registration_no}}

Occupational Health and Employee Wellbeing Policy

1. Purpose

The purpose of this policy is to ensure that {{org_field_name}} promotes and maintains the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of all employees. Our commitment to occupational health and employee well-being ensures that staff can perform their roles safely, effectively, and with appropriate support. This policy outlines preventative health measures, risk assessments, access to medical support, mental well-being initiatives, and workplace adjustments, ensuring compliance with Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) regulations.

This policy supports compliance with the following legislation, regulations, statutory guidance and regulatory expectations applicable to domiciliary support services in Wales:

2. Scope

This policy applies to:

It covers:

3. Commitment to Occupational Health and Well-being

{{org_field_name}} is committed to:

3.1 Roles and Responsibilities

The Responsible Individual is responsible for maintaining oversight of the service and ensuring that governance arrangements support safe, effective and well-led care.

The Registered Manager is responsible for implementing this policy, ensuring staff are supported, ensuring health and wellbeing risks are assessed and managed, and ensuring any staffing or wellbeing concerns that may affect safe care delivery are escalated and acted upon.

Line managers and supervisors are responsible for monitoring workload, stress, sickness absence, fatigue, working time, travel demands, lone working risks and staff support needs. They must take prompt action where concerns are identified.

Employees and workers are responsible for taking reasonable care of their own health and safety and that of others, following safe systems of work, reporting hazards, incidents, injuries, stress, fatigue, infection risks, concerns about fitness to work and any matter that may affect safe care delivery.

Occupational health providers, where used, will provide independent clinical advice to support safe work, reasonable adjustments, return-to-work planning and health surveillance, subject to employee consent and confidentiality requirements.

4. Workplace Health and Safety Measures

4.1 Occupational Health and Wellbeing Risk Assessments

{{org_field_name}} will carry out suitable and sufficient risk assessments to identify and control risks to employee health, safety and wellbeing. These assessments will be reviewed when circumstances change, following accidents or incidents, following staff concerns, where sickness absence trends indicate a possible work-related cause, and at least annually.

Risk assessments will include, where relevant:

Where risks remain after controls are implemented, the organisation will consider whether health surveillance or occupational health advice is required.

4.2 Infection Prevention and Control

4.3 Ergonomic Workspaces and Equipment

4.4 Accidents, Incidents, Near Misses and Occupational Disease Reporting

All work-related accidents, incidents, near misses, violence or aggression incidents, exposure incidents, sharps injuries, manual handling injuries, stress-related concerns and suspected occupational diseases must be reported to the line manager as soon as possible and recorded in accordance with the Health and Safety at Work Policy and incident reporting procedure.

The Registered Manager will ensure that incidents are reviewed, investigated proportionately, and used to identify learning, prevent recurrence and improve staff safety and wellbeing.

Where an incident meets the threshold for reporting under RIDDOR, {{org_field_name}} will report it to the Health and Safety Executive within the required timescale and retain the required records.

Where an accident, injury, staffing issue, outbreak, safeguarding concern or other event affects or may affect the safe delivery of regulated care and support, the Registered Manager will consider whether notification to CIW, the local authority, commissioners or other relevant bodies is required under the organisation’s notification and incident reporting procedures.

Staff who are injured, assaulted, exposed to infection, involved in a distressing incident, or otherwise affected by a work-related incident will be offered appropriate support, which may include first aid, medical advice, occupational health referral, debriefing, supervision, counselling, changes to duties, or a review of risk controls.

5. Physical and Mental Well-being Support

5.1 Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)

5.2 Mental Health Support and Work-Related Stress Management

{{org_field_name}} recognises work-related stress as a health and safety risk. The organisation will assess and manage stress risks in the same way as other workplace health and safety risks.

Stress risk assessments may be completed for individuals, teams or the whole service where concerns are identified. Assessments will consider workload and demands, control over work, support, relationships, role clarity and organisational change.

Managers will hold regular wellbeing conversations with staff through supervision, spot checks, return-to-work meetings, team meetings and informal check-ins.

Staff experiencing stress, anxiety, depression, trauma, burnout, compassion fatigue or other mental health concerns are encouraged to speak to their line manager, the Registered Manager, HR or another appropriate senior person at the earliest opportunity.

Support may include workload review, rota review, additional supervision, temporary adjustments, referral to occupational health, signposting to GP or specialist support, counselling through an Employee Assistance Programme where available, mediation, peer support, or other reasonable measures.

No employee will be subjected to detriment for raising a genuine concern about work-related stress, mental health, workload, fatigue, bullying, harassment, unsafe staffing or wellbeing.

5.3 Promoting a Healthy Work-Life Balance

5.4 Support Following Traumatic, Violent, Aggressive or Distressing Incidents

Staff working in domiciliary care may experience distressing situations, including deterioration or death of an individual, safeguarding concerns, challenging interactions, violence, aggression, harassment, discrimination, self-neglect, unsafe home environments or family conflict.

Following any traumatic, violent, aggressive or distressing incident, the line manager will make timely contact with the staff member to check their immediate safety and wellbeing. The manager will consider whether medical support, police involvement, safeguarding referral, incident reporting, occupational health referral, counselling, debriefing, changes to rota, changes to care arrangements, two-to-one working, or review of the individual’s risk assessment and personal plan is required.

Staff must not be expected to continue attending a situation where there is an unmanaged risk to their safety. Where care must continue, the Registered Manager will arrange safe alternative measures, which may include additional staffing, revised visit arrangements, commissioner involvement or emergency escalation.

5.5 Domiciliary Care Scheduling, Travel Time, Rest Breaks and Fatigue

{{org_field_name}} will schedule domiciliary care work in a way that supports safe care delivery and staff wellbeing.

Each domiciliary care worker will be provided with a schedule of visits that identifies the time allocated for each visit, travel time between visits and, where applicable, rest breaks.

Travel time will be planned realistically, taking account of distance, geography, traffic, parking, weather, time of day and any other factor that may reasonably affect travel between visits.

Visit times must be sufficient to enable care and support to be delivered in accordance with the individual’s personal plan. Visits must not normally be less than 30 minutes unless one of the permitted exceptions applies under the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016 and associated regulations.

Managers must monitor rotas, travel time, missed or late visits, rushed visits, staff feedback, incident reports and electronic call monitoring data to identify fatigue, unsafe scheduling, insufficient travel time or workload pressure.

Staff must report concerns where travel time, workload, visit length or fatigue may affect their wellbeing or the safe delivery of care. The Registered Manager will review and act on such concerns promptly.

5.6 Non-Guaranteed Hours and Secure Working Arrangements

Where domiciliary care workers are employed on non-guaranteed hours contracts, {{org_field_name}} will comply with the Welsh regulatory requirements on offering alternative contractual arrangements where the relevant conditions are met.

Where a worker has worked regular hours over the relevant qualifying period and the organisation has an ongoing need for those hours, the worker will be offered the choice of alternative contractual arrangements in line with Regulation 42.

Contract discussions and the worker’s decision will be recorded. Where a worker chooses to remain on a non-guaranteed hours contract, the arrangement will be reviewed again after the required period or sooner where required by law or organisational need.

The organisation will monitor developments under the Employment Rights Act 2025, including changes to Statutory Sick Pay, guaranteed hours, reasonable notice of shifts and compensation for cancelled shifts, and will update this policy and employment procedures when those changes come into force.

6. Managing Sickness Absence

6.1 Reporting Sickness Absence

6.2 Sick Pay Entitlements

Statutory Sick Pay will be paid in accordance with current UK legislation and any contractual sick pay arrangements set out in the employee’s contract of employment.

From April 2026, eligible employees will be entitled to Statutory Sick Pay from the first full day of sickness absence, and the lower earnings limit will be removed. {{org_field_name}} will update payroll, sickness absence procedures and employee information to reflect the statutory requirements in force at the relevant time.

Occupational Sick Pay, where applicable, will be paid only where provided for in the employee’s contract or organisational terms and conditions.

Sickness absence will be managed fairly, consistently and supportively, with consideration of disability, pregnancy, work-related ill health, mental health, long-term conditions, reasonable adjustments and occupational health advice where appropriate.

6.3 Long-Term Health Conditions, Disability and Reasonable Adjustments

{{org_field_name}} will consider reasonable adjustments for employees with disabilities, long-term health conditions, fluctuating conditions, mental health conditions, neurodivergence, sensory impairment or other health needs that may affect work.

Adjustments may include changes to duties, rota patterns, visit allocation, travel requirements, equipment, supervision, communication methods, phased return, additional breaks, temporary redeployment, changes to working hours, assistive technology, training, or other reasonable measures.

Where appropriate, advice may be sought from occupational health, the employee’s GP or specialist, Access to Work, HR, or another competent person. The employee’s consent will be obtained before medical information is requested.

Adjustments will be reviewed regularly and whenever the employee’s role, health, risks or service needs change.

7. Work-Related Stress Prevention and Support

7.1 Identifying Workplace Stressors

Common sources of workplace stress include:

7.2 Preventative Measures

7.3 Reporting and Managing Workplace Stress

8. Access to Occupational Health Services

Employees may be referred to occupational health where health may affect their ability to work safely, where work may be affecting their health, where reasonable adjustments may be required, where there is long-term or repeated sickness absence, where there has been a work-related injury or exposure, where health surveillance may be required, or where specialist advice is needed to support a safe return to work.

Occupational health referrals will be discussed with the employee before referral wherever practicable. The reason for referral, the questions being asked and how the report will be used will be explained to the employee.

Occupational health advice may address fitness for work, likely timescales for return, functional limitations, reasonable adjustments, health surveillance outcomes, work-related risks and recommendations to support the employee and maintain safe service delivery.

Occupational health reports will be shared only with those who have a legitimate need to know, such as the Registered Manager, HR or relevant senior manager. Medical details will be handled confidentially and in accordance with data protection requirements.

Occupational health advice will inform management decisions but does not replace the organisation’s responsibility to make fair, lawful and reasonable decisions about employment, adjustments, health and safety and service delivery.

8.1 Health Surveillance

Where risk assessments identify that staff remain exposed to health risks despite control measures, {{org_field_name}} will arrange appropriate health surveillance where required by health and safety law or where recommended by a competent occupational health professional.

Health surveillance may be relevant where staff are exposed to substances hazardous to health, infectious risks, latex, sharps, skin irritants, respiratory risks, noise, vibration or other work-related health hazards.

Health surveillance records will be kept securely and retained for the period required by the relevant regulations. Where COSHH applies, health records may need to be retained for 40 years.

The Registered Manager will ensure that anonymised trends from health surveillance, where available, are reviewed to identify whether risk controls need to be improved.

9. Return-to-Work Support

9.1 Return-to-Work Meetings and Phased Returns

A return-to-work discussion will normally be completed after every period of sickness absence. The discussion will be supportive and will identify whether the employee is fit to return, whether the absence may be work-related, whether adjustments are required, whether further support is needed, and whether any risk assessment should be reviewed.

Employees returning from long-term sickness absence, work-related injury, mental health absence, surgery, pregnancy-related absence, bereavement-related absence, trauma or other significant health events may be supported through a phased return to work.

A phased return may include reduced hours, adjusted duties, reduced travel, altered rota patterns, additional supervision, temporary avoidance of specific tasks, additional breaks, buddying, refresher training or other agreed support.

Phased return arrangements will be time-limited, documented, reviewed and informed by occupational health or medical advice where appropriate.

9.2 Workplace Adjustments

10. Confidentiality and Employee Support Networks

10.1 Confidentiality and Data Protection

Health, occupational health, sickness absence, disability, reasonable adjustment and wellbeing information will be treated as confidential personal data and, where applicable, special category data.

Such information will be processed only where there is a lawful basis and a legitimate employment, health and safety, safeguarding, regulatory, payroll, legal or occupational health reason for doing so.

Access to employee health information will be restricted to those who need the information to carry out their role. Managers will normally be informed about functional effects, fitness for work, restrictions and recommended adjustments rather than detailed clinical information, unless further information is necessary and lawful.

Records will be stored securely, retained in line with the organisation’s retention schedule and disposed of securely when no longer required.

Confidentiality may be overridden only where required by law, where there is a serious risk to the employee or others, where safeguarding duties apply, or where disclosure is necessary to maintain safe care and support.

10.2 Employee Well-being Champions

11. Monitoring, Governance and Compliance

The Registered Manager is responsible for monitoring implementation of this policy and escalating significant workforce health, safety and wellbeing concerns to the Responsible Individual.

Monitoring will include, where relevant:

Findings will be reviewed through management meetings, quality assurance audits and the service’s improvement planning arrangements. Where trends or risks are identified, action plans will be developed, implemented and reviewed.

The Responsible Individual will ensure that workforce wellbeing, safe staffing and staff support are considered as part of the service’s oversight, quality review and improvement arrangements.

Evidence of compliance with this policy may be considered during CIW inspection under the Leadership and Management theme and, where relevant, the Well-being and Care and Support themes.

Where CIW inspection ratings apply, the organisation will use inspection findings and ratings to support continuous improvement.

12. Related Policies

This policy should be read in conjunction with:

13. Fitness for Work and Safe Care Delivery

Staff must be fit to carry out their duties safely and effectively. Staff must inform their line manager as soon as possible if their health, medication, fatigue, stress, injury, infection risk, pregnancy, disability, mental health, substance use, or any other factor may affect their ability to work safely or provide care and support.

Managers will respond supportively and proportionately. This may include temporary adjustments, occupational health referral, medical advice, amended duties, changes to rota, suspension from specific tasks, infection control precautions, or other measures necessary to protect the employee, individuals receiving care and support, colleagues and the public.

{{org_field_name}} will not permit staff to work where there is a known and unmanaged risk that they are not fit to safely perform the tasks required of their role. Decisions will be based on risk assessment, medical or occupational health advice where appropriate, equality duties, contractual obligations and the need to maintain safe regulated care.

Where a fitness for work concern may affect professional registration, safeguarding, safe care delivery or regulatory compliance, the Registered Manager will consider whether further action, escalation, referral or notification is required.

14. Policy Review

This policy will be reviewed at least annually or sooner where required due to changes in legislation, Welsh Government statutory guidance, CIW requirements, Social Care Wales guidance, HSE guidance, employment law, organisational learning, incidents, inspection findings, audit findings or operational need.

The review will consider whether the policy remains effective in supporting staff wellbeing, safe staffing, staff fitness, occupational health, safe care delivery and regulatory compliance.

The Registered Manager and Responsible Individual will ensure that staff are informed of significant changes and that any related procedures, forms, training or supervision tools are updated.

Responsible Person: {{org_field_registered_manager_first_name}} {{org_field_registered_manager_last_name}}
Reviewed on: {{last_update_date}}
Next Review Date: {{next_review_date}}
Copyright © {{current_year}} – {{org_field_name}}. All rights reserved.

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