The Co-operative Group and the Co-operative Financial Services are to upgrade their occupational health provision.

Under a new contract with Atos Healthcare, the companies, which employ 82,000 in the UK, will provide pre-employment referrals, absence management, physiotherapy and workstation assessments in order to improve overall staff wellbeing and reduce absence.

Graham Greaves, occupational health, safety and wellbeing manager at Co-operative Financial Services, said: "Occupational health is a business critical service in a people- focused organisation like ours and by implementing a new management information and trend analysis tools, we can better monitor our service and ensure it continues to meet the needs of our employees in the future."