East Suffolk Council (“ESC”, “the Council”) is looking to procure a provider of Occupational Health Services to work collaboratively with us, offering professional support and advice to complement our absence management policies and procedures and health and wellbeing agenda. The Council considers the health and wellbeing of staff to be paramount in delivering high quality services. Achieving a balance between the needs of our employees and the delivery of the organisation’s objectives is not always easy. Sickness absence accounts for a considerable proportion of lost working time and the average cost of absence is significant. The Council’s aim is to reduce this by investing in an occupational health provision that is flexible and robust enough to meet our organisation’s needs, providing a locally based service for our officers.