Maximise your business performance, maximise the potential of your staff

The phrase "Our staff are our most valuable resource" may be old, but in the current economic climate, realising the full potential of employees is vital to productivity. Valuable resources have been invested in recruitment, training and experience, but can easily be wasted due to sickness absence.

The traditional healthcare model involves seeking advice from a professional, usually the GP. The NHS Self Care for You programme has been designed to enable people to take control of their own health, make changes and deal more effectively with health related problems.

The NHS Self Care initiative states:

When we feel unwell we often hand over responsibility for our care and treatment to care professionals because we believe that ‘they know best’, even for minor health problems or emotional problems. This may make us lack the confidence to take care of ourselves or it may make us passive receivers of care who do not tell care professionals what we think and feel in case we become labelled ‘difficult’ or ‘awkward’. In contrast to this, ‘self care’ can be described as "the care taken by individuals towards their own health and well being, and includes the care extended to their children, family, friends and others in neighbourhoods and local communities".
It also suggests that Self Care can help individuals:

• stay fit and maintain good physical and mental health
  
• meet their social and psychological needs
  
• prevent illness or accidents
  
• care for minor ailments and long-term conditions
  

According to the World Health Organisation, health is defined holistically as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’ . This definition has not changed since 1948, but our attitudes and beliefs towards our own care have changed to wanting to maintain good all-round or holistic health.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) claim that sickness absence costs UK business over £12 billion a year and according to CBI statistics, over £500 per worker each year in direct costs. Indirect costs will be considerably higher.
Sickness absence, according to the HSE is not simply a matter of ill-health. It is affected by a combination of the health condition, personal, work, and organisational factors.

We are fully NHS trained, certified and experienced to deliver the Self Care for You programme and can work with your organisation to deliver in-house or at an external venue should you require.

Self Care for You is a flexible, modular training course of 6 activities of approximately 1½ hours each. Upon completion, participants should be able to:

• understand the relationship between health and behaviour
  
• learn how to change unhealthy behaviours
  
• increase confidence and self esteem
  
• learn how to manage stress and anxiety
  
• recognise the importance of healthy eating and exercise
  
• manage minor ailments
  

We will work with your organisation as closely as you require providing all course materials, staff promotional leaflets and notice-board posters. We will at all times respect the confidentiality of all course participants, ensuring that anything said in the sessions remains in the sessions.

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Investing in the health and well-being of your workforce directly contributes to increased productivity and minimises financial risk. Maintaining good health means less absence through illness and a more positive workplace. (Business in the Community)

Our aim is to improve the general health and well-being of the working age population and to support more people with health conditions to stay in work, or enter employment. This will bring benefits to individuals through better health, as well as to employers through improved productivity and reduced sickness absence. It will also lead to savings for Government through fewer people claiming sickness benefits, reduced health spending. Department of Work and Pensions

If you think investing in employee health is a benefit you can only afford in the good times, then you may have to have a rethink. Noel O'Reilly, Personnel Today

The economic costs of sickness absence and worklessness associated with working age ill-health are over £100 billion a year – greater than the current annual budget for the NHS and equivalent to the entire GDP of Portugal. Working for a healthier tomorrow, Dame Carol Black, HMSO, 2008

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Training4ne1 is a UK limited company (no. 06247536), wholly owned by Christine and Neil Hamilton.