New agreement signed to enhance health and wellbeing among workers

LISBURN Council has entered a contract with the Public Health Agency for a Workplace Health Initiative aimed at promoting a healthy workforce.

Health Minister Edwin Poots was present at the contract signing and said: “Lisburn has a history of industrial and commercial success and is one of the fastest growing regions in Northern Ireland.

“In order to maintain this momentum, this initiative between Lisburn City Council and the Public Health Agency highlights the importance of promoting a healthy workforce that will help support local enterprise.

“In Northern Ireland it is estimated that the cost to the local economy of work-related injuries and ill-health is between £193m and £242m each year.

“This is a statistic that needs to be addressed and this initiative provides the perfect platform for Lisburn businesses to build, develop and retain a healthy workforce that will allow them to remain competitive, dynamic and therefore ultimately successful in business.”

The Council and the PHA have identified four areas of shared work through which Health and Wellbeing can be improved in the Lisburn area:

1. Reducing accidental death and injury; 2. Increasing healthier lifestyles and in particular the uptake of physical activity; 3. Enhancing local community, neighborhoods and environments; and 4. Helping local businesses improve the health and wellbeing of their workforce and their economic viability.

Mr Colin McClintock, Director of Environmental Services, said: “The Council’s Environmental Health Service and its Economic Development Unit will be working closely with the PHA and other partners to ensure that local businesses benefit from fewer workplace accidents and healthier staff.

“In partnership with the Council’s Leisure Services staff, Environmental Health Officers will be operating a number of community based health initiatives over the period of the contract.

The shared vision of the Executive Partnership is ‘Invest in Health, Profit in Business’.

Dr Eddie Rooney, Chief Executive of the PHA, said: “Workplaces represent an important setting that provide not just employment for an individual but one which can also engender motivation, satisfaction, a sense of pride, purpose and identity, ultimately affecting and individual’s health and wellbeing and their quality of life.”