Preventing social exclusion through illness or disability: Models of good practice

McAnaney and Wynne [1] have presented a coherent description and a theoretical account of the processes whereby people who acquire a disability or chronic illness can become socially excluded. This mainly happens through the process of becoming absent from work and through a failure to be reintegrated into the workplace, for whatever reason, eventually becoming long-term absent and dependent on long-term disability benefits. This paper, based on a research project funded by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions [7], addresses the issue of what might be done to prevent this process of social exclusion occurring, both at the level of national systems and at the level of the workplace. This paper provides examples of what might be termed good practice taken from a number of European countries which were studies as part of the European Foundation project. Describing examples of good practice at any level requires a framework for good practice against which real practice can be assessed. This paper proposes two such frameworks, one each for the systems and workplace