Employee Bone Health Screening: What a Workplace Assessment Day Involves

What is a workplace bone health screening day?

Workplace bone health screening means an on-site assessment day: we bring portable REMS bone density equipment to your premises and work through pre-booked employee appointments across the day, with our team handling setup and management. Nothing is installed permanently, no employee travels to a clinic, and you do not need any clinical staff or facilities of your own.

The format matters because bone density assessment has historically meant a hospital appointment. Screen My Bones works on a mobile, pop-up model instead — the approach described on our assessment days page — which is what makes screening a group of employees in one working day practical at all.

From the employee's point of view it is undramatic: they arrive at a booked time, an operator explains what will happen, there is no need to undress, and there is no GP referral to arrange. Our walkthrough of what to expect at a screening day is written for the person being scanned, and is worth circulating internally beforehand.

Why would an employer put bone health on the wellbeing calendar?

Because musculoskeletal health is already one of the largest categories in UK sickness absence, and bone health sits inside that picture without usually getting its own attention. The Office for National Statistics reports that an estimated 148.9 million working days were lost to sickness or injury in 2024 — an average of 4.4 days per worker, at a sickness absence rate of 2.0%. Office for National Statistics

Within that, musculoskeletal problems were the second most common reason for absence occurrences in 2024, at 15.5%, behind minor illnesses at 30.0%. Office for National Statistics For separate context on work-caused ill health specifically, the Health and Safety Executive estimates 40.1 million working days lost to work-related illness and workplace injury across Great Britain in 2024/25, with 1.9 million working people reporting a work-related illness. Health and Safety Executive

What does an employer need to provide on the day?

Three things: a private room, site access, and internal coordination. That is genuinely the whole list.

What you provide	Why it matters
A private room with a door that closes	Assessments are one-to-one, so privacy matters; allow room for the operator, the person being assessed and the equipment
Site access either side of appointments	Our team needs time to set up before the first slot and clear the room after the last
Confirmed power and access details	Check exact requirements with us when you fix the date, rather than assuming the room will work
A named internal coordinator	Someone to hold the booking sheet and chase unfilled slots
A nearby waiting area or seat	Keeps the day running to time when someone arrives early or late

You do not need clinical staff, a treatment room, changing facilities or any equipment of your own. Setup and management on the day is handled by our team, along with support before, during and after the screening day.

How many employees can be screened in one day?

Up to 15 individual REMS bone density assessments, with appointment slots of approximately 30 minutes each. That capacity figure is the one to build your plan around, because it decides two things at once: how many days a workforce of your size needs, and how you prioritise who gets offered a slot first.

Two consequences follow. If demand exceeds 15, the answer is a series of assessment days rather than compressed appointments — slot length is what makes the experience worth having. And prioritisation is an internal decision to make and communicate before you promote the day, not while employees are asking why they missed out. Organisations commonly open slots to higher-risk age bands first, or align the day with an existing menopause or women's health programme.

What does each employee receive?

A T-score, Z-score and fragility score for hip and spine, delivered to their own personal Screen My Bones dashboard within one to three days of the assessment — plus free lifetime access to the Screen My Bones platform.

Three parts are worth spelling out for employees in advance:

• The scores themselves. A T-score and Z-score are the standard ways bone density results are expressed. For pre-reading, our explainers on what a T-score means and how Z-scores differ from T-scores do that job without anyone needing to ask HR.
• Lifetime platform access. Every person scanned keeps access to the platform, including educational resources and guidance — so the day is a starting point rather than a one-off number.
• Results they own. The scores belong to the employee, to keep and to raise with their own GP if they want to take it further. Nothing about the day obliges anyone to do anything with their results.

Employees who want to understand the assessment itself before booking a slot can read our overview of what a bone health assessment involves.

What does the employer receive, and what don't you see?

Individual results are delivered to each employee's own personal dashboard — they are not handed to you on the day. As the organising employer, what you receive is the day itself: setup and management, support from our team before, during and after, a partner marketing asset library for internal promotion, and a listing on the Screen My Bones provider map.

On the reporting question, we would rather give you a straight answer than a comfortable one: confirm the arrangements in writing before you book. Agree what is and is not reported back to you, whether any aggregate or anonymised summary is available, who the data controller is for the assessment records, and how long records are retained. Health information is sensitive and your own data-protection obligations attach to it, so none of it should rest on an assumption made during a planning call. If a supplier cannot answer those four questions plainly, that is useful information in itself.

How do you plan and promote the day internally?

Treat promotion as the critical path, because unfilled slots are the most common disappointment. A screening day with six of fifteen appointments taken is a scheduling failure, not a screening one.

Confirm the date and secure the room first — a suitable private room is often the real constraint in an open-plan office. Then announce the day with enough lead time for people to book, using the social graphics, email templates and in-venue materials in our partner marketing asset library. Publish who is eligible and how slots are allocated at the same time as you open bookings. Finally, send a reminder the day before with the room location and the reassurance that nobody needs to undress or arrange a referral.

How do you arrange an assessment day for your organisation?

Get in touch and we will work through dates, capacity and room requirements with you. Because assessment days are mobile and pop-up, availability is by arrangement rather than a fixed timetable, and pricing is quoted per enquiry.

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This article is part of our corporate wellness series. For the workforce case behind on-site screening rather than the mechanics of the day, start with corporate bone health screening.