Research project Presently, mental health issues stand as the predominant reason for extended sick leaves in Sweden, while responsibility for rehabilitation is highly sectorised. Collaboration between responsible actors has therefore been emphasised. Nonetheless, legal uncertainties and gaps in knowledge, particularly regarding the extent of rehabilitation responsibilities and the individual's obligations to engage in the process, can hinder both legally compliant and efficient collaboration.
This legal science project explores and analyses the legal conditions for cooperation between the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, employers and occupational health services, particularly with regard to the assessment of work capacity and rehabilitation needs for employees on sick leave due to mental health issues.
Mental ill-health is currently the most common cause of long-term sick leave and absence from the labour market. At the same time, responsibility for rehabilitation is highly sectorised and distributed among a number of different actors, each with distinct tasks or opportunities to support the individual's rehabilitation for return to work. Against this background, collaboration between responsible actors has often, both in political and legal contexts, been highlighted as an important prerequisite for an effective and functioning rehabilitation process. However, legal ambiguities and knowledge gaps regarding, among other things, the scope of rehabilitation responsibility and the individual's obligations to participate in rehabilitation can complicate both legally secure and effective collaboration.
This project explores and analyses the legal conditions for collaboration between the Swedish Social Insurance Agency, employers and occupational health services, especially when it comes to assessing work capacity and rehabilitation needs for employees on sick leave due to mental illness. These actors are often central to the rehabilitation process, but their responsibilities intersect and combine constitutional, social security, labour law, occupational health and safety law, as well as health care law at national, European or international level. From the individual's perspective, these sets of rules may also contain both rights regarding rehabilitation and requirements for participation (which vary depending on the actor(s) involved in the rehabilitation).
The focus for further analysis is therefore, among other things, the role and powers of the Swedish Social Insurance Agency with regard to cooperation with employers, as well as the employer's responsibility or possibilities to fulfil the Swedish Social Insurance Agency's wishes or need for cooperation. Attention is also drawn to the regulation of the occupational health service and how the occupational health service's participation in a rehabilitation process can affect the conditions for co-operation. The same applies to the extent to which legal sanctions can be used to influence both employers and employees to actively participate in rehabilitation and co-operation on the same. In addition, it examines how the regulatory framework balances the individual's right to integrity and autonomy against the requirements for participation.
Overall, the project thus focuses on examining the conditions and mechanisms for ensuring that all parties involved take responsibility in the rehabilitation process for employees who are on sick leave due to mental illness. The aim is to generate knowledge that can be of help and support for both rehabilitation actors and individuals, as well as for courts, trade unions and others.
