Webinar: Job quality and health: the role of employers and the new government
Employment is widely recognised as beneficial for health and well-being, but not everyone experiences these benefits equally. With increasing reports of ill health among the UK’s working-age population, concerns about the quality of work are growing. These issues are also significant for the new government and its ambition to boost growth and deliver a ‘new deal’ for working people.
At this event we explored:
- how shifts in the quality of jobs are impacting worker health
- what steps employers and the new government should take to address them
- what lessons we can learn from previous efforts to tackle these issues.
The event featured emerging insights from new research by the Institute for Employment Studies for the Commission on Healthier Working Lives.
We convened leading experts to explore quality of work in the context of rising ill health in the UK’s working-age population.
Speakers
Zubaida is the interim Deputy Director and Head of Research and Policy at Women’s Budget Group. Prior to this role she was the former CEO of The Equality Trust, and interim CEO and Deputy Director of The Runnymede Trust. Zubaida has worked in senior management and executive roles within think tanks, charities and government departments. She has also been a Commissioner on several national reviews, including on northern riots in 2001 and more recently for Lewis Hamilton commission. Zubaida is a member of Independent SAGE, the London Partnership Board, GLA Equality Diversity and Inclusion Group, Youth Endowment Fund advisory group and trustee at the Howard League for Penal Reform.
Nicola is the Head of the Rights, International, Social and Economics department at the TUC. The department leads the TUC's work on boosting employment rights, promoting social and economic policies that benefit working people, and building international solidarity.
Matthew joined the NHS Confederation as its chief executive in June 2021, having been chief executive of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) for 15 years. During his tenure, Matthew transformed the RSA into a global institution, with 30,000 fellows and a high profile and influential research programme.
Before the RSA, Matthew was chief adviser on political strategy to Prime Minister Tony Blair and he also ran the Institute for Public Policy Research for 5 years. He is a widely known commentator on policy, politics and public service reform and regularly appears on national media programmes, including as a panellist on BBC Radio 4’s Moral Maze. He was series editor for the Thames and Hudson ‘Big Ideas’ books and his own book ‘Do we need to work?’ was published in 2021. He was commissioned by the Conservative government in 2016 to carry out an independent review into modern employment practices. Matthew presents the podcast series ‘Health on the Line’ (for NHS Confederation). He post on X as @ConfedMatthew
Tony has worked in employment policy and research for the last twenty years, in a range of roles spanning central government and independent institutes. As Institute Director at IES, Tony leads a team of fifty people delivering research, analysis and consultancy support on employment, skills, education and HR. He has particular expertise in labour market policy and analysis; the design, delivery and evaluation of employment and skills programmes and supporting organisations to understand and apply evidence of ‘what works’ in employment policy and service delivery.
Prior to joining IES in October 2018, Tony was Director of Research and Development at the Learning and Work Institute, and before that a Director at the Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion. Between 2001 and 2011 he worked on employment, skills and welfare in the Department for Work and Pensions, Jobcentre Plus and HM Treasury. While in government this included leading on the design and implementation of a number of employment programmes during the financial crisis including the Future Jobs Fund; supporting David Freud on his independent review of 'welfare to work' in 2007, and latterly working as Head of employment policy at HM Treasury in the early years of the Coalition government where he advised Treasury Ministers on the labour market and public policy.
Chair
Jo Bibby is Director of Health at the Health Foundation.
Jo is responsible for leading the Foundation’s Healthy Lives strategy to create the opportunities for everyone to lead a healthy life.
Joining the Foundation in November 2007, Jo initially led the Foundation’s influential portfolio of work in patient safety and person-centred care.
Jo has worked in health care at local and national level for 25 years, including 10 years at the Department of Health. As Head of NHS Performance, she oversaw the implementation of the policy agenda set out in the NHS Plan. At the NHS Modernisation Agency, Jo led an international quality improvement initiative – Pursuing Perfection.
Before joining the Foundation, Jo was the Director for the Calderdale and Kirklees Integrated Service Strategy where she led a major service reconfiguration programme to deliver improvements in quality, safety and patient experience.
She is a trustee at the Centre for Homelessness Impact and from June 2021 a non-executive director at Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust.
Jo has a PhD in Medical Biophysics.
