"Stuck" Cases, Sorted

About this event

Stuck absence cases? Long-term restricted duties? Learn how Functional Capacity Evaluations give HR the evidence to move forward.

Every HR team has cases that have quietly stalled: long-running absence where fit notes keep renewing with no confidence to trigger capability, redeployment or ill-health retirement, and employees on restricted duties that ossified months or years ago with no clear route to review. Functional Capacity Evaluations (FCEs) are designed to resolve exactly this.

Michelle Kitson — a Chartered Occupational Health and Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy Specialist with 26 years' experience across the NHS, MOD and private sector — hosts this live online session for HRBPs, ER specialists, OH leads, reward and HR directors.

On the day: 45-minute talk followed by 15 minutes of live Q&A, delivered online.

What you'll gain:

• Know when commissioning an FCE is the right call, and what it does and doesn't assess (current work capacity — not prognosis or diagnosis)
• Be able to read an FCE report critically: capacity, restrictions, sincerity-of-effort indicators and prognosis
• Use FCE evidence to support capability, redeployment or ill-health retirement decisions defensibly, alongside your Equality Act reasonable-adjustments analysis
• Know how to use FCEs to recalibrate restricted duties that have drifted for too long
• Leave with a one-page "Is this case FCE-ready?" decision checklist to use with your own caseload

Speaker's Bio

Michelle Kitson is a Chartered Occupational Health and Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy Specialist with over 26 years' clinical experience across the NHS, the Ministry of Defence and the private sector. She founded Hampshire PhysioWorks in 2012, providing occupational health physiotherapy services to global manufacturing, cosmetics and financial-sector clients. Michelle served on the ACPOHE Executive Committee from 2015–2020 and was part of the ACPOHE working party that developed the national Assessing Work Capacity Toolkit for occupational health physiotherapists across the UK. She holds an MOD Commendation (2020) and a Distinction in Managing OH Services (2023).

Please note:

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3. The chat function will be used for participants to engage with the webinar, so just be mindful of the login name you use and ensure you are happy for other people to see this.

4. For security reasons, it is requested that participants join the live session 10 minutes prior to the scheduled start time and with the same name as registered on Eventbrite as not doing so may cause a delay or non-admittance to the event.

5. This event may include an external speaker who has prepared their own presentation n. Any views or opinions expressed by the speaker are their own and do not reflect those of the CIPD.

6. If you require any reasonable adjustments to enhance your experience, please get in contact with us by responding to this email and we will do our best to accommodate.