01
The referral arrives late and incomplete
Managers refer after a long absence, with little job information, unclear questions, or no account of what has already been tried at work.
Sickness absence
Occupational health software for sickness absence referrals.
Generic sickness-absence management records time away from work. Occupational health work begins when absence, capability or return-to-work concerns result in a Referral. Occentra manages that occupational health workflow. It is not an HR absence-management system.
Sickness absence referral
Management referral · long-term absence
Reason for referral
Sickness absence
Employment context supplied by the manager
Questions asked
Return-to-work advice
Functional implications and possible adjustments
Referral status
Accepted
Occupational health case created
Workplace advice
Awaiting assessment
HR absence recording remains outside Occentra
The operational problem
Absence creates the question. Occupational health has to answer it.
Sickness absence management and occupational health work are easy to confuse because they often start from the same event. Recording days lost, fit notes, triggers and line-manager actions is an HR process. Occupational health work begins later, when the employer needs advice about health and work: fitness for duties, likely timescales, adjustments, capability or a planned return. Occentra is for that second piece of work. It is not a replacement for the first.
02
Repeat reviews lose the earlier advice
Long-term absence often needs more than one occupational health assessment. If previous reports and workplace advice are hard to find, each review starts again.
03
HR absence data and occupational health work stay disconnected
That is sometimes correct. Occupational health should not become the organisation's absence ledger. The difficulty is keeping enough employment context without taking on HR's system of record.
04
The outcome is treated as an absence decision
Occupational health advises on health and work. Decisions about sick pay, capability and employment remain with the employer. Software that blurs that boundary creates the wrong record for everybody.
How the work should run
Treat sickness absence occupational health work as a management referral with a history.
Occupational health does not manage the absence. It responds once absence, capability or return-to-work concerns result in a Referral. The workflow should preserve that request, the Case created when it is accepted, the assessment and the advice given over time.
The employer requests occupational health input
A management referral should explain the absence context, the job demands, and the questions occupational health is being asked to answer.
The service triages and accepts the request
The occupational health team checks whether the information is sufficient, how urgently advice is needed, and which pathway the referral should follow.
The case organises the assessment
Appointments, forms, documents and clinical review sit in the case created from the accepted referral. Previous occupational health advice for the same employee should remain available to authorised clinicians.
The report answers the workplace questions
The authorised outcome may comment on functional implications, adjustments, review timing or a return-to-work plan. It is occupational health advice, not an HR absence status.
How Occentra helps
Occentra supports the occupational health intervention, not the HR absence process.
There is no separate absence product in Occentra. Sickness absence work uses the referral, case, appointment, form and report model already used for other occupational health requests.
A referral can capture a manager's request for occupational health input because of sickness absence. The referral holds the questions, the employment context and the reason for the request. Accepting it creates the case in which the assessment takes place.
If further reviews are needed, they remain connected to the same employee. Clinicians can see earlier authorised advice and case history without reconstructing the story from email. Appointments and tasks keep the current piece of work visible until the report is released.
Occentra does not calculate absence triggers, store an organisation-wide absence calendar, or decide when a referral must be made. Those remain employer and HR responsibilities. Occentra coordinates the occupational health work that follows once a Referral exists.
Relevant capabilities
Absence-related occupational health work uses the core platform.
The useful capabilities are those that keep the request, the assessment and the advice connected, while leaving absence recording where it belongs.
Management referrals
Capture the absence-related questions the employer is asking, then triage and accept the request as occupational health work.
Employee history
Keep earlier cases and released advice with the employee so later reviews do not start from a blank record.
Cases, appointments and forms
Organise the assessment, consultation and any follow-up in one operational workspace.
Reports
Prepare, review and release workplace advice to the appropriate recipient.
Role-based access
Managers receive occupational health advice appropriate to their role, not the clinical record.
Audit history
Retain a readable account of the referral, assessment and release if the advice is later reviewed.
Occentra is occupational health software, not an HR absence-management system.
Employers still need their own arrangements for recording absence, occupational sick pay, fit notes and line-manager processes. Occentra is for the occupational health service that receives a Referral, assesses the relationship between health and work, and returns authorised advice. It is not designed to compete with HR information systems or generic absence-management tools.
Where this work happens
The same occupational health problem, in different operating environments.
Internal occupational health teams in local government, the NHS and logistics often see sickness absence as a large share of management referral work.
Local government
Manage referrals, surveillance and return-to-work support across social care, waste, highways and corporate services.
NHS and healthcare
Coordinate staff clearance, vaccination, exposure incidents and return-to-work advice across clinical services.
Logistics
Coordinate driver fitness, depot health programmes and return-to-work advice across national networks.
Continue
Related reading on the platform.
Occupational health referrals
Absence-related occupational health work starts as a referral, not as an HR case.
Product
See the operating model from request through case work to released report.
NHS occupational health
Healthcare workforces often combine absence referrals with other occupational health pathways.
See how Occentra handles an absence-related referral.
Bring a management referral you use for long-term or repeated absence. We will show the path from the request to authorised occupational health advice.