AHP reduces staff absences at United Response

Active Health Partners' (AHP) absence-management system has helped United Response, a charity working with people with learning disabilities, to cut absence levels in its workforce.

The relationship between individuals and their support teams is the key to helping them take control of their lives, which is why the organisation works hard to foster continuous, stable working patterns, which can be disrupted by unexpected absence and over-use of agency workers.

As 40 per cent of the people United Response supports do not communicate verbally, skilled staff that have built up understanding over time and are able to interpret their preferred way of communicating - such as sign language or body language - are particularly important to their quality of life.

By reducing absences by more than a quarter through its partnership with AHP, the individuals United Response supports are much likelier to benefit from such consistent relationships.

In the first 12 months, United Response reduced the number of working days lost annually per employee by more than three days.

Absence has decreased steadily since the launch and is more consistent month to month, with none of the large peaks and troughs that existed previously.

United Response supports more than 1,500 people throughout the UK and employs more than 2,000 staff.

The social-care sector traditionally has a high absence rate and, prior to the partnership, United Response was representative of this trend.

As a result of high absence levels, United Response was using a high number of additional personnel to provide cover.

This impacted on its ability to provide consistent care and led to increased costs for the organisation.

Therefore, United Response wanted to implement an absence-management scheme to support employees and encourage a more holistic and proactive approach to employee wellbeing.

The HR team at United Response looked to an outside company to help it reduce its absence rates and after a highly consultative process chose AHP.

The absence-management service was successfully rolled out to all of the company's staff.

Employees telephone AHP's 24-hour call centre when they are unwell.

The calls are handled by qualified nurses, who record details of the employees' sickness, offer them medical advice and an anticipated return-to-work date and notify their line managers of the absence by email and/or text message.

AHP also manages occupational-health cases, helping to provide cost effective and timely case management to help employees back to work.

The 24-hour staffed nurse centre ensures employees can advise of an absence, no matter what time of day, enabling managers to swiftly arrange cover, as well as offering constant assistance for employees.

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