ATTEND HOLISTIC HEALTH Europe 2027

Panel discussion: Who owns workforce health?

Absence, claims, delayed care and capacity risk are now connected pressures for large employers. Yet responsibility often sits across HR, occupational health, reward, benefits, finance and operations without clear ownership. This panel examines how organisations are moving from fragmented responsibility to governed workforce health.

• Who owns workforce health in a large employer
• Where fragmentation weakens outcomes
• What needs to reach executive or board level

Featuring: 

• Sainsbury's Director of Group Safety, Insurance, & Occupational Wellbeing, Crystal Danbury
• Rio Tinto Chief Medical Officer, Elton Dorkin

Presentation: The cost curve: claims, absence and prevention economics

Employers are spending more on healthcare, benefits and support, but higher spend does not always reduce risk. Medical inflation, access delays, mental health, musculoskeletal conditions, chronic disease and long-term sickness are changing the employer cost base. This keynote connects claims, absence, delayed care and productivity into one commercial picture.

• Why workforce health spend is rising
• Where activity fails to prove value
• What prevention needs to show under budget scrutiny

Panel discussion: The employer health operating model

Many employers have added more services without redesigning the system around them. Private medical insurance, virtual GP, EAP, mental health support, occupational health, absence management and specialist pathways often sit in separate structures. This panel examines how employers can move from disconnected provision to governed workforce health pathways.

• How benefits, occupational health and absence management connect
• Where supplier fragmentation creates failure
• What better pathway governance looks like

Featuring:

• DHL Group VP Global Risk Benefits, Health and Wellbeing, Matthias Helmbold
• BT Group Head of Health, Dr. Elschen Kotze

Coffee, networking and partner conversations

Panel discussion: When clinical need meets job reality

The most expensive workforce health failures often occur when manageable health problems become long-term absence, reduced capability or employment risk. This panel focuses on the point where health becomes operational: triage, case management, workplace adjustment, vocational rehabilitation, line manager capability and return-to-work design.

• How clinical need becomes workforce risk
• What employers need from occupational health and case management
• How return-to-work can be governed earlier and better

Featuring:

• EDF Chief Medical Officer, Sarah Jackson
• Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust Vocational Rehabilitation Pathway Lead, Faye Peary

Presentation: From access to outcomes: governing specialist care pathways

Employers are adding more routes into care, but access alone does not create outcomes. Specialist support only works when it connects to occupational health, line manager capability, absence management, clinical governance, consent, data and return-to-work. This presentation examines how specialist care can be governed as part of workforce health strategy, rather than added as another disconnected benefit.

• Where specialist support fails when it sits outside the operating model
• How care pathways should connect to work, absence and recovery
• What employers need to govern before scaling provision

Lunch

Facilitated employer-side table discussion: Workforce Health Governance Pulse: where is risk actually showing up?

A structured table discussion examining where workforce health risk is becoming visible inside large organisations, where ownership remains unclear, and what should reach senior leadership earlier.

The discussion will invite employer-side participants to share practical observations on absence, claims, delayed care, capability, productivity, manager strain, work intensity and prevention. Outputs will help inform the private Workforce Health Governance Pulse.

• Where is workforce health risk becoming most visible: absence, claims, capability, productivity, attrition, manager strain or delayed care?
• Which risks are properly owned, and which fall between HR, reward, occupational health, finance, operations and line management?
• What should reach senior leadership earlier?

Panel discussion: From support to prevention: designing work before people break

Most employers are better at supporting people once they are struggling than preventing harm in the first place. Prevention sits upstream: in workload, staffing, job design, management capability, psychological safety and the way work is organised. This panel builds on the preceding table discussion and examines how employers can move prevention from isolated initiatives into the design of work itself.

• How work design shapes health, absence and performance 
• Why absence should be treated as a signal of exposure 
• What credible prevention looks like in large, complex organisations

Featuring:

• Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust Associate Director, Occupational Health & Wellbeing, Nicola Bullen
• Society of Occupational Medicine | King's College London Immediate Past President | Professor of Defence Mental Health, Prof. Neil Greenberg

Presentation: From utilisation to value

Many employers can measure activity but not value. Utilisation data shows use. Engagement data shows sentiment. Claims data shows cost. Absence data shows loss. None of these alone proves whether workforce health investment is reducing risk or protecting capacity. This presentation examines what better measurement should look like.

• Why common wellbeing and benefits metrics fall short
• How employers should judge outcomes
• Which indicators matter to senior leadership

Panel discussion: What reaches the board?

The closing panel examines what workforce health governance needs to look like at executive and board level. It asks how employers should report health risk, defend prevention investment, challenge ineffective spend and decide what to stop, consolidate or scale.

• What workforce health risk should look like in senior reporting
• Where current metrics fail commercial scrutiny
• How organisations decide what deserves further investment

Closing remarks and networking coffee