Changes to Access to work- Civil Servants?

Boyyanno92

I'm hoping someone on here might be able to help me. I work in the civil service and have been told that the Access to Work support will no longer be available for us and will be replaced by an "occupational health" framework. I wondered if anyone knew how this will affect employees who would normally use Access to work as it seems to be a reactive clinical stance. I don't know how employees with Disabilities will be supported under the new guidelines. Does anyone know anything more? 

janer1967

Hi and welcome to the community 

I'm not sure if this is an initiative from your employer rather than access to work 

I presume the oh service will be used instead to provide what access to work did 

Think you need to find the answers from your employer as nobody here will know any details 

Access to work is the employee that applies not the employer so I'm confused as to how this would work and taking away use of their service would stop the funding access to work provide towards any adjustments required 

_witchcore

My sister had a bad experience. This has been in place at DWP for a long time. They wanted the service to be better than access to work but apparently cuts eroded the service. They refused some things that atw would have funded, because of cost. What happens is you are assessed independently and then a report is sent to your manager for them to order the equipment or arrange training etc. My sister is suing them. I feel bad for civil servants. Reading the info on that link it's pretty much the same. Hopefully it's an opportunity for the whole thing to be improved. I doubt it though. Refusing adjustments that have been recommended by a specialist independent assessor because they don't want to spend the money... what a silly idea putting managers who are meant to save the department money in charge of necessary spending in an area that should not be subject to cost cutting.