Sometimes, long-term health condition symptoms can make work and home life harder. This guide has been designed to help people who have long-term conditions and the people they work for. If you have a long-term condition, some jobs at work might feel harder for you than for other people. This is not anyone’s fault. Everyone has the right to get support at work.
Supporting people at work is not about giving some people ‘special treatment’. It is about making sure everyone has the best chance to do well at their job. This guide aims to help people succeed at work. We hope it will empower employees and employers to talk more openly, without fear.
This guide supports employees and employers by:
- helping everyone learn about long-term conditions
- explaining the symptoms people might have and what might be hard for them
- raising awareness of the Equality Act and what ‘reasonable adjustments’ mean
- giving managers guidance around having clear and helpful chats with employees
- giving employees simple ways to track their symptoms and notice how their health affects their work
- sharing simple ideas to make work easier for people
- helping everyone think about health at work
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Debate on long‑term conditions. House of Commons Library. - Watt, T., Raymond, A., Rachet‑Jacquet, L., Head, A., Kypridemos, C., Kelly, E. and Charlesworth, A. (2023).
Health in 2040: projected patterns of illness in England. The Health Foundation. - Valabhji, J., Barron, E., Pratt, A., Hafezparast, N., Dunbar‑Rees, R., Bragan Turner, E., Roberts, K., Mathews, J., Deegan,
R., Cornelius, V., Pickles, J., Wainman, G., Bakhai, C., Johnston, D.G., Gregg, E.W. and Khunti, K. (2024)
‘Prevalence of multiple long‑term conditions (multimorbidity) in England: a whole population study of over 60 million people’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 117(3) - Health Foundation (2024)
Health conditions among working-age people - Office for National Statistics (2022)
Sickness absence in the UK labour market: 2022 - Oxford Economics (2023)
The Cost of Brain Drain: Understanding the Financial Impact of Staff Turnover