Healthy January!

January has pretty much become - albeit unofficially - national health month. Maybe it's all all that rich food I ate during the festive period - three different types of Christmas cake, full Christmas dinners at various venues, and a few too many chocolates. yes, that is likely to be what it is.

Anyway, come January and it's not even a New Year's resolution type thing. I just don't want to eat anything other than healthy stir fries, a nice bit of fish, some bean stews - and even, believe it or not, some nice cold salads.

Sadly my proposed - and perhaps overly ambitious - exercise routine didn't quite happen. Or rather it did, but is currently on something of a hiatus.

If you're in the same boat - or similar, at least, then this clip is handy as it's fro exercise beginners and a reminder of just how accessible exercise can be - not to mention very good for us too.

Small business and sickness absence

Every year a lot of days are lost to sickness absence – in fact the figure for 2011 was quoted as an incredible 131 million. Interestingly, though, this figure does seem to be falling slightly as the years pass. This is possibly down to improved treatments for certain illnesses as well as better diagnostic methods becoming available over time.

However, long term sickness remains a problem within UK business and in 20111 the government called for an independent review into sickness absence. One of the main things that the report found was that in many cases, there were instances of people who were off work with stress or manageable musculoskeletal  problems such as a sore back , who became signed off work more or less indefinitely. Then there were cases of people who fell out of employment due to long term sickness and became benefits claimants.

The report identified instances where people could in fact have been assisted in returning to work for instance by altering the nature of the tasks carried out. The government has now proposed an independent advisory service that will help assess individual cases where people are on sick leave for over four months and also help people on long term sick leave find a role that is appropriate to the tasks they’d be able to carry out

The new independent advisory service could – along with the health cover that many employers purchase from providers such as AXAPPP business health insurance, become an important factor in workplace wellbeing and the minimising of sickness absence.

Winter of novovirus 2012/13

You can hardly log in to facebook or read a newspaper without hearing some quite terrible stories about the novovirus bug that's going around right now.

Over the festive season there were stories of otherwise healthy and active families being laid low in their entirety by this widespread microbial nasty.

Known in the UK as the Winter Vomiting bug, it's a fairly widely recognised name, but anyone following the news this year - or even just overhearing conversations about it - is bound to be wondering why it's taken such a hold this year.

The answer - according to this BBC report, is down to it being a new strain of the bug that's lasted longer into the Antipodean summer than usual. So now you know ...

Medical care overseas

It's the holiday season - at last. Time to think about the year gone by, eat some nice healthy low fat turkey meat - and maybe even take a little trip abroad.

If you find yourself overseas then there's a good chance you will have thought out all the different things to make sure you've organised before making the trip. Things like cancelling the newspaper deliver while you're away and getting your health travel insurance sorted.

Travel insurance is extremely important and you'd simply assume that every single person who went abroad would have purchases travel cover. Not so. In fact - and this is really quite amazing - around a fifth of travellers aren't covered. But it's not down to an overly laid back, "oh whatever" kind of attitude when people go uninsured. In fact it's often down to a mistaken belief that the government would pay for any treatment needed.

In the case of people who are living abroad longer term, in most cases experts strongly recommend international medical insurance - this is because treatment can be expensive and in some countries the state medicla facilities can be quite basic. This type of cover also includes medical repatriation - which is very dear indeed if you haven't got expat cover and end up having to pay for it out of your own funds

For an interesting look around various world country's health systems in brief, then take a look at the travel section within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website - it's very useful for finding out in which countries you need medical insurance. the site also has useful information on the general safety of places including a guide to the number of annual visitors who've required consular assistance in the past year.

Health news roundup

Hi and welcome back to Your Private Healthcare Insurance Blog. I'm unwell today (this cold/ flu thing that's going around), so in lieu of a post proper - here are some of the most interesting health stories in the news right now.

The £100 genome. In the near-decade since the Human Genome Project was declared complete in 2003, things in the world of genetic study have moved on apace, and according to the health news this week we could be within sight of an era where your "entire DNA" could be mapped at very little cost. A huge breakthrough in terms of the potential for improved health care, but what are the privacy implications?

Athletes and Ibuprofen. Taken as a prophylactic against muscle pain, Ibuprofen is on the shopping list for a lot of athletes. But could it be doing more harm than good? According to recent research, it may be causing intestinal damage, but the long-term effects are as yet unknown.

The secret to longer life? Have children, according to new research from Denmark, using data from tens of thousands couples treated at IVF clinics in the country

The effects of energy drinks - the Guardian's readers share their experiences (and opinions) of enerhy drinks in this interesting article. For the record, I myself avoid carbonated drinks but I have tried one of those little 5mil energy drinks capsule bottles. They were being given away as part of a promotion - but to be honest I have no idea if I felt energetic afterwards! (It was three years ago...)

Dental health latest - news from around the web

For quite a long time there's been talk of how gun health could have some link to heart health, bu tthe nature of this link isn't yet known - and may not be a causal one. Basically one theory is that  people for whom  diseased gums are an issue may also be people who are less likely to maintain recommended exercise levels and perhaps not eat such a healthy diet. So it may a be a holistic health issue rather than there being a risk of diseased gums causing heart disease - indeed, there have been reports this year that it's a 'coincidental association'.

And on the Dentistry website this week is the news that bad gums could also be linked to other problems. Quoting from a study in the Journal of Sexual medicine, the article states that "men in their thirties, who had inflamed gums caused by severe periodontal disease, were three times more likely to suffer from erection problems". Again, this could be a 'coincidental' association but either way it's a reminder to keep the gums as well as the rest of the lifestyle as healthy as possible too.

In other dental news, the BBC reports that a device known as the "Tianjie Dental Falcon" - a hand-held x-ray device - poses a health risk due to 'accumulated radiation' in users such as dental nurses.

Meanwhile, for people without dental insurance it means going to the dentists knowing that you'll need to foot the bill, and it can sometimes be confusing knowing what's what - and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is encouraging people to get more info on their rights. The OFT's Right To Smile campaign page has all the info on it and is well worth a look. Especially if you're unsure about what's involved in treatment charges and so on.

Support needed for workers with cancer

When we talk about cancer, obviously we're not talking about just one single disease - since there are over 200 different types of cancer.

As such, this also just as obviously means that there will be a high degree of variance in terms of diagnoses as well as prognoses.

And in the workplace there are currently over half a million people with some form of cancer (560,000 to be more precise) according to new research carried out by Oxford Economics. And the contribution to the economy from a number of people this large is of course significant, running to 16 billion pounds annually.

With improved detection rates over time, and resultant higher number of people being diagnosed plus greater survival rates, it's estimated that the number of people in the workplace with cancer could actually almost double to a million people - meaning that greater support for people with any form of the disease will be imperative as we move forward.

Currently there are 63,000 people with cancer who would prefer to be in work but are unable to make this happen due to various barriers making it too difficult. The Oxford Economics study throws up some important issues that will be of interest to HR strategists as well as those interested in workplace wellbeing strategies.