Solihull Chamber is to help businesses persuade their employees to lead a healthier lifestyle, in a bid to cut days lost to illness. 

According to Solihull NHS Care Trust, local businesses saw more than £6m* go up in smoke last year, thanks to smoking related illnesses among their employees.

And that's just the tip of the unhealthy lifestyle iceberg in the borough - eating badly, drinking too much and not exercising enough are all combining to cost local employers a small fortune.

Now Solihull Chamber has joined forces with the borough's NHS Care Trust to help local firms try and encourage their employees to adopt a more healthy lifestyle.

The Chamber and the Care Trust are to hold a health and business forum on 20 October at Solihull College, starting at 17.30.

The event will see chamber members find out how healthy - or unhealthy - they and their workforce actually are.

The Care Trust will be on hand to demonstrate to businesses how they can persuade their employees to adopt a healthy lifestyle.

"Helping your workforce to be as healthy as possible makes good business sense," said Solihull Chamber director Jane Jackson.

"It must be fairly obvious to everyone that what doesn't make good business sense is to have half your staff off sick with avoidable illnesses."

For further information or to book a place please contact Liz Ayto on 0121 781 7384 or email to solevents@solihull-chamber.com

*Figures according to Solihull NHS Care Trust. The £6m is the cost to local business caused by smoking related illnesses alone. Deaths caused by smoking cost the local economy £4m in lost productivity.