Back awareness in Tyne and Wear partnership
September 1999
In 1999, the Department of Health, as part
of the national Healthy Workplace Initiative, made funding
available for projects to explore ways to tackle the problem of
back pain, the most common cause of absence from work in the
UK.
A total of 19 projects in England were funded, one of these
being Back Awareness in Tyne and Wear - the BAIT project. The
project was carried out by a partnership of organisations in Tyne
and Wear - occupational health services from Newcastle, Gateshead
and Sunderland, the Health and Safety Executive, Nissan and the
Tyne and Wear Health at Work Initiative.
The project proposal was to produce a resource to help small
organisations manage the problem of back pain, frequently
experienced by employees. A group of 18 small organisations was
recruited as an ongoing consultation group, both to provide some
local baseline data and to ensure the usefulness and relevance of
the resource pack at every step of its production.
The BAIT project ran from September 1999 until March 2001, with
the production and dissemination of the final resource during the
summer of 2001. The final resources are available below.
